Gunmen shoot Somali intelligence official in Mogadishu

November 16, 2007 ( MOGADISHU) — Gunmen on Friday assassinated a Somali intelligence official in the capital Mogadishu where security forces are battling Islamist rebels, police and a witness said.

National Security Service staffer Hassan Abdi Mohamed was shot in the head and shoulder in Yaqshid, one of the most volatile districts in northern Mogadishu, they said.

“We are investigating the incident and we hope the assailants will be brought to justice,” said a police official who requested anonymity.

Witness Hassan Mohamed said the official was slain in front of a mosque shortly after Friday evening prayers.

“The assailants escaped from the scene before policemen sealed it off,” Mohamed said.

Several government officials have been killed since January, when Ethiopia-Somali forces pushed back an Islamist movement from much of the country it had briefly ruled, touching off a deadly insurgency.

Attacks have dwindled since the forces swooped into the capital’s volatile Bakara market Monday in search of weapons.

The United Nations and the European parliament have called for a probe into alleged war crimes in Mogadishu after dozens of people were killed and at least 170,000 others displaced in crackdowns on insurgents in recent weeks.

Meanwhile the European Union, one of Somalia’s largest donors, called on President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed to allow three Mogadishu radio channels to resume broadcasts.

The army yanked Radio Shabelle, Radio Banadir and Radio Simba off the air this week for allegedly fanning the conflict in the capital by interviewing anti-government elements and broadcasting propaganda. It also accused it of involvement in the insurgency.

“The European Union reiterates that freedom of the press is a principle strongly upheld by the EU, without which no democracy or reconciliation perspectives can take place,” the EU said in a statement released in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

The Somali government has defied calls by rights groups and foreign nations to relax its heavy-handed clampdown on press freedom, which has been choked by the conflict.

So far this year, at least eight reporters have been killing in Somalia, ranking the country the second deadliest worldwide after Iraq for journalists, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Somalia has lacked an effective government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre touched off a power struggle that has defied numerous peace bids.

(AFP)