By Guled MohamedMOGADISHU (Rooters) - Somali gunmen shot dead a senior government official in a troubled Mogadishu district and a teenager died when munitions left behind by African Union peacekeepers exploded, officials said on Tuesday.
A roadside bomb also detonated next to an AU convoy in the seaside city that is enduring an upsurge in attacks by insurgents targeting interim administration officials.
The government blames the string of suicide bombings, roadside blasts and assassinations on the remnants of an Islamist movement ousted by its forces and their Ethiopian military allies over the New Year.
Two men armed with pistols gunned down Osman Ali, deputy district commissioner in northern Mogadishu's Islamist stronghold of Horuwa, late on Monday. A district commissioner was also murdered by gunmen last month.
"The men shot him and ran away," Mohamed Omar, the area's deputy police chief, told Reuters.
Elsewhere, a Somali teenager died from wounds sustained on Monday after he and another boy played with unexploded ordnance left behind by A.U. troops in city's south, a doctor said.
Major Jeff Mukasa, acting commander of the Ugandan peacekeepers, said two other boys may have died at the scene, possibly as they scavenged for scrap metal from the destroyed munitions to sell in Mogadishu's sprawling Bakara Market.
In the past few weeks the Ugandans have been detonating tons of weaponry seized in door-to-door raids launched across the capital by Somali and Ethiopian soldiers.
ROADSIDE BOMB
Mogadishu is one of the world's most heavily armed cities, and in the latest insurgent strike targeting the peacekeepers, a roadside bomb blast hit an armored vehicle in an AU convoy returning to base on Tuesday. No one was hurt.
"The Somalis have provoked us many times," Mukasa told Rooters. "But we shall never retaliate, even though we have the guns and everything else necessary to fight, because that is not in our mandate."
The 1,600 Ugandans are the vanguard of an 8,000-strong AU peacekeeping force expected to be deployed to the war-ravaged Horn of African nation to help secure peace and protect President Abdullahi Yusuf's interim government.
Late on Monday, Deputy Defence Minister Salad Ali Jele said paramilitary fighters from northern Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region were set to join government forces to help boost security in Mogadishu and elsewhere.
Puntland remains part of Somalia, which plunged into anarchy in 1991 after clan militias deposed former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Since then, thousands have died from war and famine.
Jele was speaking in Bosasso, where angry traders and money changers closed shops on Tuesday accusing the local authorities of minting huge amounts of Somali shillings to buy U.S. dollars, devaluing the local currency and disrupting their businesses.
"The dollar has shot to 21,000 shillings from 16,000 a month ago," said money changer Jama Hassan. "We have no profits anymore." Local officials vowed to investigate the complaints.
(Additional reporting by Ibrahim Mohamed and Abdiqani Hassan in Bosasso)