8 killed in Mogadishu clashes
2009-12-21 17:58
Mogadishu - At least eight Somalis were killed in two separate incidents in Mogadishu on Monday, as hardline insurgents upped their offensive against a government pleading for more international support.
Five people, including three policemen were killed in a roadside bomb attack targeting a government official near the presidential compound.
Suspected Islamist insurgents also targeted the first parliament session held in the capital in months.
Nobody was wounded but the retaliatory fire from the government forces ripped through a local radio station, killing three people and wounding several others, officials and witnesses said.
An improvised explosive device apparently concealed under a pile of rubbish went off as the vehicle of a government official drove by.
"Five people, including the driver of the targeted security official, and civilians who were onboard a nearby minibus died in the attack," Mogadishu police chief Ahmed Hasan Malin told reporters.
The targeted official, Mohamed Qoryarey, was wounded in the attack.
Shebab
Eyewitnesses told AFP that the blast destroyed the targeted vehicle but also sowed carnage on a passenger minibus.
"I saw two civilians and three policemen killed by the explosion," Farah Mohamed Sahal said.
At least three civilians were also killed when Somali government forces fired mortar and artillery shells in response to an attack by suspected insurgents from the al-Qaeda-linked Shebab on a parliament session.
The session, which was the first in months, was held in the mayor's office for security reasons and President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed had been due to attend it, officials said.
Retaliatory shelling rained down on Mogadishu's Bakara and Holwadag neighbourhoods, causing several casualties, residents said.
"A shell crashed into the radio station... Three people have died," said Abshir Abdi Ali, head of programming for local radio station Voice of Democracy.
Director Abdirahman Yasin Ali's wife was among the dead, as were two other civilians, the journalist said, adding that three of his colleagues were also wounded in the incident.
Scores of civilians have been killed in Mogadishu over the past two years when government forces and African Union (AU) peacekeepers opened retaliatory fire on densely-populated areas.
"Some mortar shells were fired at the headquarters of Mogadishu mayor where parliament members were meeting," police officer Yusuf Abdullahi Muktar said.
"The shells landed outside the building, nobody was injured. The situation is normal now and the parliament session is continuing," he told AFP.
The Shebab and their allies from the more political Hezb al-Islam movement have since May been engaged in a military offensive to topple Sharif that has caused hundreds of civilian deaths and displaced tens of thousands.
A meeting of the International Contact Group on Somalia started last week in the Saudi city of Jeddah to muster more support for the transitional government and its embattled security forces.
- SAPA