Mortar attack claims mom, 3 kids
2007-09-10 08:51
Mogadishu - Four people were killed and eight others wounded after a mortar crashed into a house in the Somali capital, where the government was battling insurgents, said witnesses said on Monday.
Hussein Adan Luqman, a local elder, said the mortar hit the house near the presidential palace in Mogadishu's Wardhigley district overnight and killed a mother and her three children.
It was not clear if the palace had been the target. Another resident, Farah Mohamed Sahal, said eight civilians had been wounded in the same incident, the latest in a string of attacks.
Four other civilians were wounded after Ethiopian forces responded to mortar attacks in northern Mogadishu's Gupta neighbourhood, said witnesses.
Guerrilla-style attacks
Local resident Mohamed Ali said: "Both sides are missing targets and hitting civilian areas."
The Somali capital had in recent months been plagued by guerrilla-style attacks against government forces and the Ethiopian troops backing them.
The United Nations humanitarian chief John Holmes at the weekend lamented that the situation was worsening in Mogadishu, where attacks had choked the delivery of humanitarian supplies.
The embattled transitional government mainly blamed the violence on Islamists who controlled large parts of south and central Somalia last year before being ousted with the help of the Ethiopian army.
But some Mogadishu neighbourhoods had also been rocked by criminal and gangland killings.
The troubled Horn of Africa country had had no central authority since former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991 and had defied numerous attempts to restore stability.