Six killed in attacks in southern Somalia

Islamic insurgents and Ethiopian soldiers killed six people in two separate attacks in southern Somalia on Saturday, a police officer and a witness said, at the end of a week that has seen some of the worst violence in Somalia in recent months.

In one attack, dozens of Islamic insurgents ambushed and killed four Somali soldiers and wounded two others as they traveled to the southwestern town of Baidoa from Mogadishu, said Ali Aden Ali, a senior police officer.

Ali said that the insurgents hid on the roadside near Wanla-weyn, 110km southwest of the capital, Mogadishu, and ambushed the soldiers who were part of a convoy of bodyguards for the finance and interior ministers.

The police officer said that the finance minister is out of the country; it was not clear if the interior minister was in any of the vehicles. The convoy of bodyguards was made up of three pickups mounted with anti-aircraft guns, Ali said.

In the capital, a battle between Ethiopian soldiers and insurgents saw two civilians killed, said Farah Omar Ishaq, who witnessed the fighting.

The fighting began when insurgents surrounded a water tanker for Ethiopian soldiers parked on a road in southern Mogadishu and “turned into heavy fighting as more Ethiopian forces came to the aid of their colleagues. The Ethiopians fired mortars into the area, killing two civilians,” Ishaq said.

Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

At least 38 people have been killed in three days of militia attacks in Mogadishu and three rural areas of Somalia.

Islamist insurgents had vowed to avenge the death of Hashi Aden Ayro, the commander of the Al Shabab militia killed last week when US fighter jets bombed his home, according to local elders. The Al Shabab commander had been leading the Islamist insurgency in Somalia and was allegedly an Al Qaeda leader in the Horn of Africa country.

On Friday, insurgents attacked a Somali military base near the presidential palace in Mogadishu, and an ensuing gunbattle left at least six people dead and 13 wounded, witnesses said.

On Thursday, Islamist fighters briefly seized the police headquarters in Mogadishu in an attack that left 11 dead, including two officers and five insurgents, according to police officer Dalmar Mohamed Hassan. He said three insurgents were captured. Witnesses said two government soldiers and two civilians also were killed in the fighting.

About 21 people, the majority of them civilians, were killed on Wednesday in four separate incidents in southern and central Somalia.