The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
MOGADISHU, Somalia: Unidentified gunmen lobbed three hand grenades at a police truck patrolling the main market in Somalia’s capital Wednesday, missing the truck and killing two shoppers, police and witnesses said.
Also on Wednesday, former Defense Minister Barre Hirale was injured in the head in an assassination attempt, said Barre Abdi, the district commissioner of the main regional town of Bardhere, 200 miles (320 kilometers) west of Mogadishu. Abdi said Hirale’s car was hit by a land mine, and that his driver was critically injured.
It was one in a series of assassination attempts against prominent figures in Somalia. Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi alone has survived three attempts since May 2005.
The country’s Minister for Trade Abdullahi Ahmad Afrah said he survived an assassination attempt in Mogadishu on Tuesday when a roadside bomb hit his body guards’ car, killing one of them and injuring three others, one of them serious.
“It was an assassination attempt. But it failed,” Afrah who was riding another car said. “Even the targeted car was lightly damaged.”
At Mogadishu’s Bakara market, police officer Abdi Mohamed Shino, who was in the truck targeted by the grenades, said police opened fire after the attack and injured two civilians.
“Two civilians died in the (grenade) blast and two others, including a policeman, (were) wounded,” Shino said. “I think the attackers disappeared into the market.”
Abdisalan Mukhtar, who sells water at the market, said three men armed with assault rifles and two pistols arrived and hurled three hand grenades at the police.
“Then police opened fire and I saw two dead bodies lying on the ground,” Mukhtar said.
A day earlier, a roadside bomb explosion killed five women and a man and wounded nine other people in an area not far from the market.
Government troops backed by Ethiopian [Woyanne] forces drove an Islamic movement from Mogadishu six months ago, but have since struggled to put down remnants of the Islamic movement as well as clan fighting.
The Elman Human Rights Organization on Wednesday accused Somali and Ethiopian forces of killing or arresting innocent civilians without proper judicial process.
“On June 19, Ethiopian troops killed six civilians including three brothers, who were students,” the local group’s chairman, Sudan Ali Ahmed, told The Associated Press. “These soldiers always arrest at least 10 people after each explosion. Those who are arrested are in detention centers without trial.”
Ahmed also expressed concern over the arrest of many prominent clerics and four Tanzanians who fled from Zanzibar seven years ago. The Tanzanians have been missing for two months, Ahmed said, adding that there was a possibility they ended up in Ethiopia.
“All these killings and detentions without trial are human rights violations,” Ahmed said.
Government spokesman Abdi Haji Gobdon dismissed the allegations.
“We don’t arrest people without any reason or hold them without trial,” Gobdon said. “We don’t kill people aimlessly. The allegations are baseless and unfounded.”
Dozens of foreigners have been held in Ethiopian jails and accused of ties to Islamic militants in Somalia. Human rights activists and lawyers have accused Ethiopia of establishing an illegal detention program that violates international law. Ethiopia says the detentions are part of the fight against terrorism and that it has the right to defend itself.
AP Writer Nasteex Dahir Farah contributed to this report from Kismayo, Somalia.