Saturday, August 18, 2007
Three people were wounded when a roadside bomb hit a high-ranking security official's car in a southern neighbourhood that has repeatedly come under attack recently, local government spokesman Said Mohammed Mohieddin said.
"Radical groups are behind the attack on district commissioner of Holwadag Yusuf Elmi Gele and two policemen, the bomb hit the car while passing near the Police academy," he told AFP.
Another district commissioner, this time in the southern neighbourhood of Wardigley, also survived an ambush on his convoy by attackers who used grenades, he told AFP.
"They wanted to finish me but luckily my security men and I survived the attack," said Hassan Ali Hashash. He added that a civilian woman who was near the scene had been injured.
Meanwhile, another woman was killed in the latest violence to rock the Somali capital's notoriously dangerous Baraka market area.
Eyewitnesses told AFP that she was killed when security forces opened fire after coming under attack.
"The woman was selling her grocery near the site of the explosion and a stray bullet hit her as she was inside her shop," said Bashir Khalif Gani.
Another witness, Yusuf Mohammed, said "the policemen opened fire indiscriminately."
Mogadishu has experienced one of its deadliest weeks since Ethiopian troops backing Somali government forces wrested final control of the capital from an Islamist militia in April.
According to a casualty toll compiled by AFP, more than 40 Somalis -- many of them civilians -- have been killed since August 11.
Human Rights Watch said in a report released earlier this week that the spring fighting had seen war crimes committed by all sides and denounced the general disregard for civilians.
Since being defeated, insurgents have continued to launch almost daily guerrilla-style attacks against government or Ethiopian targets.
Source: AFP, Aug 18, 2007