Senior Somali gov't official shot dead in south Somalia
10/11/2008 17:32
Gunmen in the southern Somali town of Baidoa, the base of the transitional
Somali parliament have shot dead a senior Somali government official, local
media reports said yesterday.
Hussein Runow Sheik, second deputy Governor of
the southern Bay region, was killed by three men armed with pistols, as the
Governor was on his way back to his home in Baidoa, 245 km south west of
Mogadishu, the local Shabelle radio reported.
Somali government security
forces, who have reportedly arrived at the scene minutes after the gunmen
escaped, cordoned off the area and started house-to-house searches for the
men.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the killing of the
official but Islamist insurgent fighters have been waging deadly guerilla
attacks on Somali government officials and security forces as well as Ethiopian
troops backing it.
Baidoa, where the transitional Somali Parliament is based
has been relatively stable but recently insurgent fighters have been carrying
out attacks on targets of Somali government forces and Ethiopian military
forces.
Insurgent fighters have killed numerous Somali government officials
since the insurgency against the internationally recognized government began in
early 2007, shortly after allied Ethiopian and Somali government forces toppled
an Islamist administration that ruled much of south-central Somalia for the
latter half of 2006.
The Islamist administrators were accused by Somali and
Ethiopian governments of challenging the authority of the national institutions
and of threatening the national security of Ethiopia.
A ceasefire agreement
between a main faction of the opposition of the opposition Alliance for the
Reliberation of Somalia (ARS) and Somali government forces was supposed to come
into effective on Nov. 5.
But a number of other opposition factions including
the hard line Al-shabaab Islamist movement and a breakaway group of the ARS
rejected the agreement and vowed to continue fighting until an Islamic state is
established in Somalia.
Xinhua
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