From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sat Sep 13 2008 - 05:38:07 EDT
At least 16 killed in central Somalia, top gov't official assassinated
2008-09-13 00:36:00
APA-Mogadishu (Somalia) At least 16 people were killed and more others injured in a clan-related fighting in border villages between middle shabelle and Hiiraan regions in central Somalia.
The fighting over the ownership of grazing lands between the two regions erupted late on Thursday and continued over on Friday night.
"All those who died and injured in the clan-based fighting were among the warring militias," as Abdalal Hussein Yahya a journalist in the region told APA.
"Both sides are regrouping and the situation is very tense, as an other breakout of fighting is imminent at any minute," he adds.
"The death tall is expected to rise because of the serious injuries of some of the wounded militias" said Mahmoud Ahmed an elder in the region who talked to APA via phone on Friday.
In other developments, unknown gunmen assassinated a top Somali government official on Friday morning in Badoa, the transitional seat of the Somali parliament.
Sheik Mohamed Hajji Abdulkadeer, chairman of the appeals court of the Bay region was shot dead in the center of the town by unidentified men armed with pistols.
"Masked armed men killed the chairman and they escaped," a resident in Baidoa Ali Yusuf who witnessed the killing, told APA.
The killing coincides with three days after Mohamed Osman Maye a legislator in the Somali parliament was gunned down in the same town of Baidoa as he left a mosque.
Somalia has been without a central administration since the downfall of the former military government of Siad Barrie in 1991.More than 500,000 people have died in fierce wars, millions displaced in the country and hundreds of thousands have sought refuge in foreign nations since then.
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