Ismail Hassan Timir, Somalias Deputy Minister for Reconciliation Assasinated

MOGADISHU: Gunmen yesterday killed a deputy minister in Somalia’s country’s south-central town of Baidoa, witnesses said.

Ismail Hassan Timir, the deputy minister for reconciliation, was shot as he stepped out of his car in Baidoa, the seat of the country’s transitional parliament, a correspondent who saw his body reported.

[....Who had a motive for this assisination? It was likley al Shabaab. They have been engaging local malitia in the South of Somalia who do not have a strong enough Islamist Agenda to suite their tase, and now they have taken out the Reconciliation Minister, the only man both sides trusted to work out the details of the peace deal.... now the rest of the Story from Qatar....
-Shimron]

“We don’t know the identity of the attackers and the motive behind it,” said Mohamed Abdi, a businessman.

“He came out of his car and gunmen sprayed him with bullets,” he added.

Meanwhile, 12 people were killed yesterday when an Islamist group seized control of a central Somali trading town in a battle with hardline Al Shabaab militants, residents said.

Al Shabaab, which means youth in Arabic, captured Gurael, 370km north of the capital Mogadishu on December 6, after three days of fighting with a government-allied moderate Sunni Islamist group in the area.
Locals said the Sunni Islamist group ousted by Al Shabaab three weeks ago had been regrouping and launched their attack yesterday morning.

“I have counted 12 dead fighters lying in the alleys of Gurael,” witness Ali Aden said.

The Rest @ The Peninsila on-line (Qatar)