At Least Eight Killed in the Latest Violence in Somalia

A senior Somali police officer Ali Aden Ali, together with four government soldiers were killed and seven people were wounded early Saturday morning, when three vehicles they were traveling in were ambushed by dozens of armed insurgents near Lego village around 130 kilometers south-west of Mogadishu.

The targeted soldiers were the private guards of the minister of finance Mohamed Ali Hamud, and they were from Mogadishu traveling to Baidoa.

But the minister was not with them at the time.

During the attack, the insurgents had seized two of their three vehicles and forced the other with the seven wounded soldiers back on its way to Mogadishu.

The spokesman of the Al Shabab Islamic movement, Sheikh Muqtar Abu-Mansur has claimed that his men had carried out the attack.

He said beyond the two vehicles they captured, they had also confiscated small arms during the attack.

Meanwhile, in Mogadishu, two Ethiopian soldiers and two Somali civilians were killed, following another ambush by insurgents on an Ethiopian convoy.

A spokesman of the Islamic Courts Union Abdi-rahin Issa Adow has claimed that his fighters were behind, what he described as a well-planned attack on the enemy, in which he claimed 20 Ethiopians were killed

These attacks were the latest in days of violence that have cast a doubt over the impending peace-talks in Djibouti between the Somali transitional government and the Islamists.

Source African Press Agency

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