Tuesday, September 11, 2007
MOGADISHU (AFP) - Two people were killed in Somalia, a Horn of African nation that has been wracked by lawlessness for the past 16 years, officials said Tuesday.
Assailants stabbed to death a policeman overnight in the southcentral town of Baidoa, where the country's legislative assembly is based, local police commander Ibrahim Hashi Gabo told AFP.
An elderly man was killed in northern Mogadishu when police opened fire in response to an attack by insurgents, according to witnesses.
Insurgents also threw a grenade into a house of a lawmaker in the capital's Jungal neighbourhood, but there were no casualities, Somali police spokesman Abduwahid Mohamed told AFP.
The government blames a wave of a insurgency mainly in Mogadishu on Islamists who controlled large parts of south and central Somalia last year before being ousted with the help of the Ethiopian army.
Somalia has had no central authority since former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991 and has defied numerous attempts to restore stability.
Source: AFP, Sept 11, 2007