Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
31 October 2008
Mogadishu — Firing rocket-propelled grenades and heavy submachine guns, armed tribal militiamen seized a police headquarter at the heart of the government's stronghold in Baidoa on Friday night in a bold attack that witnesses said.
Eyewitnesses said that the attack happened following the government troops detained a businessman who was associated with bomb attacks in the town that caused that same tribe men regrouped to attack the police station, the ambush could not be immediately be verified by Somali officials.
The militiamen forcibly freed from the police station prison several prisoners including big traders.
Elsewhere two Somali soldiers have been killed in Elasha biyaha area of Afgoi district just outside of Somali capital on Friday night.
Witnesses told Shabelle that two armed men killed the two soldiers while they were onboard a vehicle that was passing in the locale.
The culprits eluded and the government forces have started trucking down them although no tangible progress they have made was reported.
Somalia's interim government and its Ethiopian military backers are battling an insurgency in Mogadishu led by remnants of Islamist groupskicked out of the city more than a year ago.
Activists say fighting in Mogadishu killed more than 8,000 people last year and wounded 8,500. Ill-equipped African Union peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi have failed to reduce the bloodshed.
Yusuf and Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein travelled to Kenya for IGAD meeting where the government where the leaders of the body decided to build a new cabinet of Somali government.
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