Somali clan elder shot dead

A Somali clan leader and key player in efforts to bring reconciliation to the country's warring factions has been assassinated in Mogadishu.

Maalim Harun Maalim Yusuf was shot twice in the head by three men armed with pistols outside his house on Saturday, according to Madina Guled Mahamed, his wife.

"One of the bullets penetrated through his head," she said. "He was shot as he knocked on the gate. We don't know why they killed him, he was a delegate at the peace talks."

He was a negotiator for a sub-clan of the Abgal clan at a government-backed reconciliation summit that began last month.

Yusuf was from the same sub-clan as Ali Mohamed Gedi, the Somali prime minister.

Delegates at the talks said he had been playing a crucial role.

"Maalim Yusuf was a peace-loving elder. We will badly miss him. His death will negatively impact the talks," Abdirahman Ahmed, one of the delegates, told Reuters. "This is a big blow to peace."

Haji Abdi Iman, the senior delegate for the Hawiye clan, said: "I don't care who committed this heinous crime but I can say this is a black day for the supporters of peace because he a dedicated negotiator despite his old age."

Local residents have said that this was the first time a senior clan elder had been killed in living memory.

The capital had experienced a short period of relative calm after a security crackdown coinciding with the July 15 opening of the talks.

Heavy fighting had erupted in Mogadishu's neighbouring Horuwa district hours after Yusuf was killed.

Mortars were fired at police who had taken up positions near a children's hospital.

"Two guards and a man were wounded after mortars landed at the hospital. The insurgents attacked the police from two sides and we were caught in the middle," a security guard said.

"The police responded with heavy artillery - it was really terrifying."