Seven dead in separate mosque attacks in Somalia

Seven people were killed and 13 others wounded overnight after gunmen attacked two mosques in Somalia's central town of Galkayo, officials and witnesses said.

The unknown gunmen opened fire on worshippers at a mosque on early Saturday evening killing five instantly, while another subsequently died of wounds sustained in the attack. Eleven people were also wounded in the attack, local police said.

"The assailants came to the mosque soon after people began to perform evening prayers and started shooting at worshippers indiscriminately, killing five of them on the spot and 12 others were also wounded," Osman Hiis, a local police officer, told Xinhua.

Residents said one of the injured later died of his wounds while the others were being treated at a local hospital in the provincial capital of Galkayo in Mudug region, 750 km north of Mogadishu.

Another attack thought to be retaliatory was launched in the early hours of Sunday by a group of armed men against another mosque in Galkayo, killing one person and wounding two others.

The north central region of Mudug has been relatively peaceful compared with the restive southern and central Somalia, where Islamist fighters engage in deadly insurgency against the Somali government and the African Union peacekeeping troops.

However, assassinations of local officials and prominent figures blamed on Islamist fighters have been reported in the region for some time.

Five Pakistani nationals were killed in a similar mosque attack in 2009 in the town of Galkayo.

Source: Xinhua