MOGADISHU, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Gunmen in the southern
Somali town of Baidoa, the base of the transitional Somali parliament have shot
dead a senior Somali government official, local media reports said Sunday.
Hussein Runow Sheik, second deputy Governor of the
southern Bayregion, was killed by three men armed with pistols, as the Governor
was on his way back to his home in Baidoa, 245 km south west of Mogadishu, the
local Shabelle radio reported.
Somali government security forces, who have
reportedly arrived at the scene minutes after the gunmen escaped, cordoned off
the area and started house-to-house searches for the men.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the
killing of the official but Islamist insurgent fighters have been waging deadly
guerilla attacks on Somali government officials and security forces as well as
Ethiopian troops backing it.
Baidoa, where the transitional Somali Parliament is
based has been relatively stable but recently insurgent fighters have been
carrying out attacks on targets of Somali government forces and Ethiopian
military forces.
Insurgent fighters have killed numerous Somali
government officials since the insurgency against the internationally recognized
government began in early 2007, shortly after allied Ethiopian and Somali
government forces toppled an Islamist administration that ruled much of
south-central Somalia for the latter half of 2006.
The Islamist administrators were accused by Somali
and Ethiopian governments of challenging the authority of the national
institutions and of threatening the national security of Ethiopia.
A ceasefire agreement between a main faction of the
opposition of the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS) and
Somali government forces was supposed to come into effective on Nov. 5.
But a number of other opposition factions including
the hard line Al-shabaab Islamist movement and a breakaway group of the ARS
rejected the agreement and vowed to continue fighting until an Islamic state is
established in Somalia.
