By Mustafa Haji Abdinut
MOGADISHU, July 9, 2007 (AFP) – Six people were killed and at least eight injured Monday as guerrilla attacks continued to plague Mogadishu, days before a key reconciliation conference involving rival Somali factions.
Three people were killed in a spate of grenade attacks and police reprisals in the capital’s busy Bakara market, witnesses said.
“I was trying to exchange money at a forex bureau when a hand grenade was hurled at the place,” Hassan Anteno told AFP. “Three people were wounded, all of them civilians.”
“Government forces posted nearby opened fire, which sent people fleeing from the market… The forces have also shot a civilian in the market,” he added.
Moments later, another blast rocked a sector of the market where goldsmiths and traders have their stalls.
“A hand grenade exploded inside the market. There were a lot of people, most of them civilians and some government forces. I saw two bodies and five wounded, including three women,” said one of the traders, Abdukader Mohamed.
The brother of one of the victims gave an AFP reporter the same toll.
A third explosion was heard in the market, but there were no immediate reports of any casualties.
Meanwhile two policemen were killed in separate incidents, witnesses and police sources told AFP.
“A policeman was collecting taxes from small businesses near Ged-Jael when he was shot in the head” by two unidentified gunmen, eyewitness Muno Hasan said.
The deputy police commissioner for Mogadishu’s Yakshid district, Nur Elmi, was also shot dead overnight, his superior Haji Ali Fidow told reporters.
“We have been told that he was shot several while going to his house,” he said.
“We took his body last night and he was buried this morning,” the victim’s nephew Sakariye Mohamed told AFP. “We don’t know who killed him but he was shot several times in the head and chest.”
A Medecins Sans Frontier (MSF) security guard was shot and killed in the central Somali town of Beledweyne, about 350 kilometres northwest of Mogadishu, officials said.
The guard was killed by a man wearing a government uniform in what appeared to be a “local Somali feud,” a witness said.
“We send our condolences but MSF operations will continue,” a humanitarian worker told AFP in Nairobi.
Last month, gunmen killed a doctor working with US charity International Medical Corps and his driver in southern Somalia, highlighting the continuing insecurity in the shattered nation.
Roadside blasts, grenade and gun attacks have convulsed the city since Ethiopia-backed Somali forces wrested final control of Mogadishu from Islamist and clan fighters in April after months of fighting.
Government officials, Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers have been targeted in the attacks blamed on Islamists determined to sabotage efforts to normalise Mogadishu.
The attacks, as well as insufficient funding, have delayed a government-organised peace conference three times. It is now scheduled for July 15.
Somalia has been without a functioning central authority since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre touched off a bloody power struggle that has defied numerous attempts to restore stability.