Islamic insurgents kill 13 in Somalia
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Islamic insurgents fired mortar rounds at the presidential palace in the Somali capital yesterday, and witnesses said at least 13 people were killed in that attack and in a separate one.
The insurgents shelled the palace as Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein was meeting with African Union peacekeepers and members of an Islamic group that has signed a power-sharing deal with his government, said Abdi Haji Gobdon, the government spokesman.
Gobdon said no one in the palace was hurt. Islamic insurgents have attacked the presidential palace several times over the past two years without killing any senior officials. Government forces fired mortars in retaliation, hitting a crowded market and a residential area.
Ali Muse, the coordinator of Mogadishu's ambulance service, told the Associated Press that he counted 11 bodies, including those of a woman and two girls.
Muse said his service carried at least 16 wounded people from Bakara market and the Gedjael neighborhood in southern Mogadishu. Other health care officials reported at least 14 injured transported to their facilities.
Elsewhere, along the industrial road northeast of Mogadishu, Islamic insurgents ambushed Ethiopian military trucks that were pulling out of the capital. The Ethiopians fought back, and the two sides exchanged mortar fire.
"The Ethiopians were trying to move out of a military base at the former pasta factory but they came under attack by insurgents, who forced them to get back to the base," said Aden Ibrahim, a local resident. "I saw the dead bodies of two civilians hit by a mortar."
ASSOCIATED PRESS 