Somali cops kill 2 'kidnappers'
2008-01-10 14:53
Mogadishu - Police in northern Somalia shot dead two suspected kidnappers during a heavy gunbattle on Thursday, said witnesses and officials.
The two men shot in the semiautonomous region of Puntland were suspected of involvement in the recent kidnappings of a French journalist and a Spanish and an Argentinean aid worker, said police.
Muqtar Ahmed, a local resident, who lived near the house, said: "Units of police in Bossaso ... have raided a house where members of the kidnappers were hiding, then a heavy gun battle ensued.
"I saw the dead bodies of two people, I do not know which side they were from, but also saw a wounded man in a police uniform."
Local government official Yusuf Bide said the police had found the kidnappers through a tip-off. He said it was the same gang who last month abducted a French cameraman in one incident and in another a Spaniard and an Argentinean working for medical charity, Medecins sans Frontieres.
Puntland 'safer'
A police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press, said police had been on the gang's trail for several days.
A gunfight broke out after they surrounded the house and several of the kidnappers escaped after clan members came to their aid, he said.
Puntlands police chief Colonel Abdiasisi Said Gamey, declined to confirm any casualties, but vowed to pursue the gang until all of them were brought to trial.
Puntland was generally considered safer than the war-wracked south, where government troops and their Ethiopian allies were battling an Islamic insurgency and thousands of Somalis had been killed this year.
But in recent months the two northern regions had seen an upsurge in piracy and kidnappings, and tensions between the two had increased over a border dispute.
Impoverished Somalia had not had a functioning government since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in a 1991 coup and then turned their clan-based militias on each other.
- AP