Gunmen threw grenades at the home of the regional police chief in south-western Somalia, killing two of his grandchildren and a bodyguard while he escaped injury, authorities said on Tuesday.
Seven other family members were wounded in the Monday-night attack, which police said was a failed assassination attempt against General Ibrahim Hashi Gabow, the regional police chief based in Baidoa.
”They threw hand grenades into the house,” said Aden Bid, the commander of Baidoa’s police station. ”The two children died at the hospital, but the bodyguard died on the spot.” The children were aged five and eight.
Baidoa, 250km south-west of the capital, Mogadishu, is the headquarters for the Somali Parliament and several senior government officials live there. Security in Baidoa has been deteriorating, with increased attacks on lawmakers. Last week, a judge was fatally shot there.
The arid Horn of Africa nation has had no functioning national government since 1991, when clan leaders overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other.
Ethiopia, with tacit United States approval, sent soldiers to Somalia last year to wipe out the Council of Islamic Courts, a radical Muslim group that had seized control of the capital and much of the southern part of the country. But members of the Islamic group soon began an insurgency with the support of Ethiopia’s archenemy, Eritrea.
Thousands of people have been killed in the conflict this year, and the United Nations says Somalia is facing Africa’s biggest humanitarian crisis. — Sapa-AP