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Riots follow Somali MP's shooting. 29/07/2006. ABC News Online
[This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1700393.htm]
Last Update: Saturday, July 29, 2006. 12:06pm (AEST)Riots follow Somali MP's shooting
The shooting of a Somali minister outside a mosque has triggered riots by pro-government protesters.
The rioters threw rocks and burned tyres at the interim administration's provincial base of Baidoa.
After Constitution and Federalism Minister Abdallah Deerow Isaq was shot, the Government blocked roads out of the town.
About 1,000 protesters furious at the killing, took to the streets with sticks, knives and stones, witnesses say.
Scores of shops were looted in several hours of chaos.
"Bring out the killers!" protesters chanted outside a police station, where officials said two captured suspects were held.
Officials would not give details of the two men arrested on suspicion of involvement in the shooting.
However, other sources in Baidoa say one was a young Muslim fundamentalist based at the same mosque.
The shooting has heightened tensions in the violence-plagued Horn of Africa nation that many fear is sliding towards war.
"It looks like an organised assassination ... We are very sorry and are condemning this terrorist action," Information Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayr said.
"They shot him as he was leaving the mosque then ran off."
A Baidoa hospital nurse said Mr Isaq, a former schoolteacher, came in with four bullet wounds in the heart and chest.
Formed in 2004 in the 14th attempt to restore central rule to Somalia since the 1991 ousting of a military dictator, the Government's authority has been challenged by the rise of an Islamist movement that took Mogadishu and other towns in June.
Born out of sharia courts created from the mid-1990s to restore some order to Mogadishu during a period of anarchy and violence, the Islamists defeated US-backed warlords in Mogadishu and have since expanded to take other towns.
With Ethiopian troops now said to be in Somalia to support the Government, and Eritrea believed by many to be arming the Islamists, many Somalis are bracing for full-scale conflict.
- Reuters
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