A top United Nations envoy for Somalia strongly condemned Tuesday's suicide attack on a hotel in Mogadishu killing at least 32 people, a UN spokesman said on Tuesday.

Members of the Islamist Al Shabaab movement prepare an artillery machine at their base in Mogadishu, Somalia, Aug. 23, 2010. Al Shabaab declared an all-out war against African Union peacekeeping forces and Somali government troops in Mogadishu on Monday. At least 40 civilians were killed and 106 others wounded in the lastest fierce clashes in Mogadishu. [Ismail Warsameh/Xinhua]

"These callous, brutal acts, which were clearly aimed at causing maximum bloodshed to innocent people, defy rational comprehension," Martin Nesirky, the UN spokesman, told reporters here, quoting UN Special Representative for Somalia Augustine P. Mahiga as saying.

"They will not, however, succeed in their violent campaign," Mahiga noted. "The peace process will continue in Somalia despite the attempts by a violent minority to disrupt it."

Mahiga condoled the people that lost family members and the government of Somalia.

The attack came during the fasting month of Ramadan, which according to Mahiga "will only serve to increase the determinations of all friends of Somalia to help bring a quick end to the conflict and to provide Somalis with hope for the future."

The attack involved Somali insurgents dressed as police officers, who stormed the hotel and opened fire, and later blew themselves up.

Reports from Mogadishu said that Somali insurgent group al- Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack through its spokesman, Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage.

Al-Shabab, along with a number of other anti-government groups, controls much of southern and central part of Somalia, as well as most of Mogadishu.

"The Somali people are yearning for peace which they deserve and they will be heard. The peace process will continue in Somalia despite the attempts by a violent minority to disrupt it," Mahiga said.

Also on Tuesday, the UN Security Council also condemned the attack "in the strongest terms" and called for the perpetrators to be swiftly brought to justice.

The condemnation was contained in a statement read to the press here by Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, who holds the Security Council's rotating presidency for August.

The 15-nation body stressed the need to continue strengthening Somali security institutions and the importance of an inclusive dialogue in the peace process.

Violence in Mogadishu has led to some 3,000 conflict-related casualties so far this year and uprooted around 200,000 people from the city, which has been the scene of ongoing clashes between government troops and rebel militant groups, including al-Shabaab.