Sunday, January 07, 2007
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AFP) - Gunmen attacked and killed a former member of Somalia's now-vanquished Islamic movement overnight in the capital Mogadishu, where lawlessness has increased since the Islamists were ousted last month, according to witnesses.
They also said that three women were wounded after unknown attackers threw a grenade in their house hours after a teenage boy was shot when Ethiopian and Somali forces opened fire to disperse anti-Ethiopian protesters.
"The man was going to his house when gunmen opened fire on him. He was left dead at the scene. He had a mobile phone and a pistol with him but they took nothing from him, so I think it was not robbery. It was a kind of assassination," said Mohamed Sheik Adulahi, a neighbor of the deceased.
"This man... was a trainer for the Islamic courts, he used to train militia for the Islamists, but I don?t know why they killed him," said Abdukadar Hersi, a resident of Mogadishu's southern Hero-Jarmal district where the incident occurred.
The three women were wounded after their house in the capital's northern Yakshid came under a grenade attack.
"I heard explosion and minutes later people shouting, I came to the scene and I saw three wounded women from the same family," Mohamed Deeq Ali, a Yakshid resident told AFP. "We don?t know the exact reason, but I think it was a previous family feud."
Mogadishu has seen a rise in violence since the arrival of the Ethiopia-backed Somali governemnt forces. The troops forced the Islamists out of the capital which they had seized from warlords in June and established a semblance of order and security by enforcing strict Sharia law.
On Saturday, hundreds of residents rallied to protest against the presence of the Ethiopian forces, throwing stones at a patrol vehicle and leading to the soldiers opening fire and killing a 13-year-old boy.
The Islamists, now holed up in a remote area in the south of Somalia near the Kenyan border, have vowed a guerrilla war against the Ethiopians.
Source: AFP, Jan 07, 2007