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June 19, 2009
MOGADISHU, June 19 (Xinhua) -- Five people including
a Somali lawmaker were killed on Friday in fierce battle between Somali
government forces and Islamist fighters in the north of the capital
Mogadishu, officials and witnesses said.
"Mohamed Hussein Addow was among a
number of people killed in this afternoon's fighting with the
anti-peace elements. The parliamentarian was at his home when he was
killed," Abdelfatah Shawey, deputy Mogadishu mayor, told Xinhua. Witnesses said four more people
were also killed in the fighting in Karan district in the north of the
Somali capital where insurgent commanders claim control, but Somali
officials deny the saying, insisting that fighting continues between
the two sides.
Addow, an ally of Somali President
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, was the fourth senior Somali government
official to be killed in as many days.
On Thursday, Somali National
Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden was killed in a suicide car bomb
attack that also killed former Somali ambassador to Ethiopia, as well
as dozens of the officials' entourage, community elders and onlookers.
Mogadishu police chief Ali Said was among the 17 people killed in Wednesday's fighting in the south of the capital city.
President Sharif on Thursday appealed
for international help in the fight against what he said were
international terrorists who he accused of wanting to turn Somalia into
"a terrorist safe haven."
Somali government forces have been
battling with fighters of the radical Islamist groups of Al-Shabaab and
Hezbul Islam, which control most of southern and central of Somalia and
want to rule the war-torn east African country by the Islamic law.
More than 200 people have died with
nearly 500 others wounded since the start of the fighting for the
control of Mogadishu in May. Thousands have been forced to flee from
their homes in the battered capital.
Somalia, a country of 9 million,
has been without an effective central government since the overthrow of
the late ruler Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1991.
SOURCE: Xinhua, June 19, 2009