Sunday, September 23, 2007
Gunmen shot an unidentified man in Mogadishu's violence-wracked Bakara market area, eyewitness Abdullahi Mohamed said. "The assailants managed to escape after killing the man," he said.
Witnesses also said that a teenager killed a civilian in Sanaa neighbourhood. The circumstances of the incident were not immediately clear.
Meanwhile, a Somali policeman was also gunned down in the Suq Baad neighbourhood by unidentified gunmen, according to local residents.
The interim government claims the insurgency is on its last feet but lawless pockets in Mogadishu remain to be brought under control.
Ethiopia's mighty army came to the rescue of the government last year and in April wrested final control of Mogadishu from an Islamist militia that briefly controled large parts of the country.
The remnants of the fundamentalist Islamic group and its tribal allies have since reverted to street guerrilla tactics, carrying out daily hit-and-run attacks against government targets in the capital.
At least 80 people have been killed in the flashpoint area of Bakara market alone since June, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on reports by hospital sources.
Somalia has lacked an effective government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre touched off a deadly clanic power struggle that has defied numerous efforts to restore stability.
Source: AFP, Sept 23, 2007