One wounded as mortars target Somalia's presidential palace

MOGADISHU, Somalia, 16 Feb 2008 - One person was wounded Saturday as mortar bombs fired by insurgents fell near the presidential palace in Mogadishu while President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was inside, a security official said.

"The shelling started hours after the president's arrival in the capital but the closest shell landed on a house near the palace area and others passed (by)," the official told AFP.

"None of them hit inside the palace."

A witness, Farah Hasan, confirmed that a civilian had been wounded when a mortar round hit his house.

Islamist insurgents have been waging a deadly guerrilla war, mainly in the capital Mogadishu, against Somali government forces and their allies from the Ethiopian military and an African Union peacekeeping force.

In another incident, the head of the capital's Daynile district, Haji Omar Haji Ali, was among five people hurt when his vehicle was blown up by a landmine, Mogadishu's deputy mayor Abdifatah Shaweye told journalists.

"A land-mine blew up his car near the district he was in charge of and we arrested two suspects for the incident in which the commissioner and four others were wounded," he said.

Source: AFP