... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
have killed six people, including an MP and a senior government official, in two separate attacks in the capital Mogadishu, police says.
In the first incident on Saturday, Somali politician Abdullahi Huseen Mohammed was killed along with his bodyguards during a drive-by shooting, DPA quoted police officer Ali Hassan Kulmiye as as saying without any reference to the number of the bodyguards.
The armed assailants then managed to flee the scene.
... as though they had never been...
added the police officer.
Earlier in the day, a senior government official, identified as Said Ali Salah, was killed in a separate drive-by shooting, the report added, citing Mohammed Hassan, a security bigshot.
An ensuing exchange of gunfire between the assailants and the bodyguards left two civilians dead, according to local police accounts.
Al-Shabaab, meanwhile, grabbed credit for both the attacks on the pro-insurgent radio station Andalus.