Gunmen kill Somali journalist in Mogadishu

Gunmen shot dead a Somali journalist Friday in the latest of a string of murders targeting reporters, colleagues said, taking the number of journalists killed in the last 36 hours to two.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Gunmen shot dead a Somali journalist Friday in the latest of a string of murders targeting reporters, colleagues said, taking the number of journalists killed in the last 36 hours to two."Ahmed Abdulahi, who was a stringer for the Yemeni news agency Saba, was shot and killed while on a minibus near a checkpoint in the Madina district," Mohamed Ibrahim of the National Somali Journalist Union told AFP.Witnesses said that Abdulahi, the sixth journalist killed in the war ravaged city in September alone, was on his way home.On Thursday, the decapitated body of sports journalist Abdirahman Mohamed Ali was found dumped in a Mogadishu street after he went missing the previous day on a visit to his family."We were all sad when we saw our son beheaded. We don't know who committed this kind of vicious killing," his uncle, who asked not be named, told AFP.No group has claimed responsibility for the murders."If this does not stop the free press in Somalia will die," local journalist Mohamed Abdulahi said.Mogadishu has been rocked by a string of attacks since Al-Qaeda linked Shebab insurgents abandoned fixed positions last year and switched to guerrilla tactics.However, some killings may also be linked to power struggles within the multiple factions in power."This is a disaster for the media in Somalia," said. AFP