11/10/07 (B416) REUTERS – Un général somalien meurt, assassiné probablement par des islamistes – Somali Army General Dies in Ambush (En Anglais – Info lectrice)

MOGADISHU, Somalia, Oct. 6 (Reuters) — Suspected Islamist insurgents killed a Somali Army general in an ambush here in the capital, witnesses said Saturday.

Five men armed with pistols killed Gen. Ahmed Jilaow Adow, his bodyguard and his driver late on Friday after he left his office in north Mogadishu.

“His car was blocked by a van, and then a car parked next to his,” said the general’s nephew, Abdihakin Omar Jimale. “Five men armed with pistols came out, shooting my uncle, his driver and his bodyguard dead.”

“He was a peace advocate and a member of Interpol,” Mr. Jimale said. “He was internationally and locally known.”

Mogadishu has been rocked by violence since Somali government forces, backed by Ethiopian troops, early this year ousted the Islamists who ruled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia for six months in 2006.

A police spokesman, Abdiwahid Hussein, said Somali troops would begin a 20-day campaign on Sunday to collect arms from residents in the gun-infested city.