MOGADISHU, Jan 22, 2006 (Reuters) – Two former colonels in Somalia's defunct military and a top police officer were killed in separate attacks in Mogadishu, raising fears of a new wave of assassinations in the lawless country, witnesses said on Sunday.

Eyewitnesses said Colonel Salad Ali Dhorre, a pilot in the former Somali air force, was shot dead in front of his house late on Saturday by an unidentified people.

Another former colonel, Ali Haji Mohamed, was also shot dead inside his car at Galgalato area north of Mogadishu. The third victim, Colonel Mohamed Hassan Addaawe, a serving police officer was shot while traveling in a public mini bus, witnesses said.

"Two armed men came in front of our house and found the colonel sitting outside, they shot him in the head and stomach," said Ahmed Ali Dhorre, the brother of the deceased.

The shootings were the latest of about a dozen incidents involving security experts murdered by gunmen in the last several months in killings that have remained mysterious.

In October last year, gunmen shot dead Colonel Mohamed Mohamud Raghe, who was helping to train militiamen recruited from around Somalia in order to create a national force following President Abdullahi Yusuf's new government's relocation from Kenya.

Residents saw the killings then as signs of opposition to Yusuf's Transitional Federal Government. The interim government formed at peace talks in 2004, has remained fractious and fragile, unable to rein in powerful warlords and their militias.

Somalia collapsed into chaos after the overthrow of military ruler Mohammed Siyad Barre in 1991. Conflict and famine have killed hundreds of thousands of people since then.

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