By AFP,
Mogadishu : At least 11 people, many of them civilians, were killed in Somalia when Islamist insurgents ambushed government forces in two incidents, police and witnesses said Saturday.
Insurgents attacked a government convoy and killing four bodyguards in Yaqbiriweyne, a dusty village around 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu. “Four guards were killed and two vehicles with some men onboard are still missing,” said Osman Hassan, a government security official. “We do not know if the insurgents kidnapped them.” Yaqbiriweyne resident Mohamed Adan Dhel confirmed the ambush.
The insurgents also ambushed government forces overnight in the south of Mogadishu, killing at least seven civilians, witnesses said, bringing the death toll to 11 over the past 12 hours. The rebels fired mortars and used heavy machineguns against their rivals who were manning a checkpoint in Mogadishu’s Hararyale district, sparking an intense firefight. “About three mortar shells landed on houses in my neighbourhood and six civilians, two of them children, died,” said Abdiasis Abdullahi, a resident. Another body was found near the battle zone, said Mohamed Farey, also a resident.
The Islamists have waged near-daily attacks in Mogadishu against Ethiopian-backed Somali government forces, which ousted their movement early last year. Last week, they promised to avenge the killing of Hashi Aden Ayro — a senior Islamist leader accused of being Al-Qaeda’s pointman in Somalia — in a US airstrike. A seemingly endless cycle of violence has plagued the Horn of African nation since the toppling of president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.