MOGADISHU — A senior Somali military officer was gunned down in Mogadishu Sunday evening, security sources said.
Gunmen armed with pistols fatally shot General Abdullahi Mohamed Sheikh Qururuh and a bodyguard as the two men were walking home from a mosque in the Somali capital, witnesses said.
The attackers walked past General Qururuh and the bodyguard, then turned and shot them from behind, the sources quoted the witnesses as saying.
Both victims died on the spot.
Qururuh was a senior army officer at Somalia’s command and control headquarters in Mogadishu. He served previously as deputy commander of logistics for the Somali army.
There no immediate claim of responsibility for the assassinations. Al-Shabab militants are believed to be involved in most such attacks on government officials.
One week ago a similar shooting in southern Mogadishu killed a senior Somali intelligence officer and his bodyguard. The attackers in that case were in a vehicle that fired on Mohamud Moallim Hassan Qoley and his bodyguard in the capital’s Dharkaynlay district. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for those killings.
In a separate incident late Sunday, two government soldiers and a civilian were killed in an Al-Shabab ambush in Somalia’s Puntland region, witnesses said.
Hospital officials in Bosaso confirmed to VOA Somali that they had received the bodies of two soldiers and one woman following the attack in Galgala Highlands, 40 kilometers south of Bosaso, a regional commercial center. Sources said five other soldiers were wounded.
Al-Shabab militants said they carried out the attack, targeting a military vehicle carrying soldiers to the Puntland base in Galgala Highlands.
