MOGADISHU (AFP) — At least six people, including an African Union (AU) peacekeeper, were killed Sunday in two separate incidents in the Somali capital, witnesses and officials said.
A convoy of the AU peacekeeping mission's Ugandan contingent was hit by a roadside bomb explosion followed by gunfire near Mogadishu airport, an AU statement said.
"The attack that lasted for a very short time and was carried out by unknown elements using small arms from building tops... resulted in the death of one of our colleagues," it said.
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| A Somali soldier patrols in Mogadishu |
The statement added that two other peacekeepers were wounded and later flown back to Uganda for treatment.
In another incident, clashes erupted in Mogadishu's Taleh neighbourhood when Somali forces raided the neighbourhood and encountered resistance from Islamist insurgents, witnesses told AFP.
Two soldiers were killed in the fighting and three civilians caught in the crossfire also died, they said.
"I saw the dead bodies of two Somali soldiers and three civilians in Taleh neighbourhood," local elder Mohamed Moalim Sugule said.
Ali Hasan, another witness, said two of the civilians died on the spot while another died on the way to hospital.
Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in 2006 to rescue the embattled western-backed transitional government and oust an Islamist militia that had briefly taken control of large parts of the country.
Islamist armed groups have since reverted to guerrilla tactics and are carrying out almost daily attacks against Ethiopian troops, Somali government forces and AU peacekeepers.
Civilians have borne the brunt of the
violence. According to several international aid and rights groups, at
least 6,000 of them have died over the past year alone.
SOURCE: AFP, September 14, 2008