Plumes of smoke seen near labour ministry in downtown Mogadishu following blasts and gunfight.

A gun battle between Somalia’s security forces and the armed group al-Shabab in the capital, Mogadishu, has ended, leaving 15 people dead, including the country’s deputy labour minister, police said.

Al-Shabab gunmen on Saturday stormed Somalia’s ministries of labour and works after detonating a car bomb at the gates of the building, near the headquarters of the country’s intelligence agency.

Minister Saqar Ibrahim Abdalla was killed in his ground-floor office shortly after the fighters entered the building, police officer Mohamed Hussein told The Associated Press news agency.

Al-Shabab said one of its fighters had rammed the ministry building with a suicide car bomb, allowing others to enter it.

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Eleven people were injured, Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of Amin Ambulance Service said.

Nur said people were rescued with a ladder from the upper floors and that an exchange of gunfire ensued.

Al-Shabab, which is trying to topple Somalia’s Western-backed central government, was ejected from Mogadishu in 2011 and has since been driven from most of its other strongholds.

But it remains a threat, with its fighters frequently carrying out bombings in Somalia and neighbouring Kenya, whose troops form part of the African Union mandated peacekeeping force AMISOM that helps defend Somalia’s central government.