Gunmen target Somali ex-minister

Mogadishu, 31 March-(ANA)-A former Somali minister and four other people accompanying him have been killed in Mogadishu.

The car carrying Abdi Rahman Mohamud Jimaale and the others was attacked with automatic weapons.

Meanwhile, a senior officer in the Islamist al-Shabab group was reportedly killed in Baidoa by forces loyal to the town's former administration.

Sheikh Hassan Deerow, the head of the Baidoa police station, was killed in fighting which left six others died.

Al-Shabab captured Baidoa, former seat of the Somali parliament, in January.

They moved in after the pullout of Ethiopian forces, which invaded in late 2006 in an effort to prop up Somalia's fragile interim government.

Al-Shabab, which its leaders say is allied to al-Qaeda, now controls much of southern and central Somalia.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since President Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. (ANA)

FA/ANA/31 March 2009---