Somalia — The director of Horn Afrik radio in Mogadishu, Said Tahliil Ahmed has been assassinated in Mogadishu by unknown gunmen armed with pistols, witnesses said on Wednesday.

The director of Shabelle Radio Mukhtar Mohamed Hirabe has also been slightly injured

It is unknown why he was killed, but al-Shabaab officials called the directors of Mogadishu radios for a conference.

"We have been called by al-Shabaab officials to attend in a conference they said it is being held in Bakaro market, but as we were walking in the Market with the Shabaab officials I heard the sound of bullets and suddenly saw Said Tahliil Ahmed being killed," said a radio reporter who did not want his name in print.

"I ran away and also heard someone saying shoot that one," he added.

Local radios and televisions had been broadcasting live coverage of the Somali presidential election held in Djibouti, which many Islamist groups rejected.

Horn Afrik radio chairman Ali Iman Sharke was killed by a roadside bomb in Mogadishu in 2007, after he had returned the funeral of Capital Voice radio director, Mahad Ahmed Elmi, who was killed on the same day by unknown gunmen in Mogadishu.

Shabelle's radio acting director Bashir Nor Gedi was also killed in 2007 near his home in Mogadishu by unknown gunmen.

Shabelle's radio reporter Hassan Mayow Hassan was the first journalist killed on the first of January 2009.