Mogadishu - Somali police opened fire after rebels hurled a grenade into a police station in the provincial town of Baidoa, killing a woman vendor, said witnesses on Monday.
The overnight grenade attack wounded two officers in Baidoa, about 250km northwest of the capital Mogadishu, they said.
Mohamed Adde, a brother of the slain woman, said: "My sister, who was selling tea, was killed by a stray bullet. Two policemen were wounded in the explosion."
A second witness Abdulfasal Mohamed confirmed the fatalities.
Rebels, ousted from the country by Ethiopia-backed Somali troops early this year after a brief rule, had waged an insurgency, targeting government officials and foreign troops in the country.
The fighting had displaced up to a million people, 600 000 of whom had fled the capital, Mogadishu, since February.
A bloody power struggle, touched off by the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, had defied numerous bids to restore stability in the nation of 10 million people.
Source: AFP, November 26, 2007