5 Pakistani preachers killed in Somalia

Published 7:54 am Wednesday, August 12, 2009

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Masked gunmen killed five Pakistani preachers today outside a mosque in Somalia following morning prayers, witnesses said.

Six gunmen with assault rifles and pistols stormed Tawfiq Mosque in Galkayo and forced six Pakistani preachers and a Somali man outside, said Ismail Mohamud Hassan, who was in the mosque at the time. The gunmen then opened fire, he said.

“Five of them died on the spot while two others were injured — one Pakistani and a Somali,” Hassan told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Galkayo, 470 miles northwest of the capital, Mogadishu.

It was not clear who was behind today’s killing in this overwhelmingly Muslim country. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, and one of Somalia’s extremist Islamic groups, al-Shabab, condemned the killings.

“It is part of the targeted killings against Muslims,” said Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage, the group’s spokesman.

Pakistan’s acting ambassador in neighboring Kenya, Manzoor Chaudhry, confirmed that Pakistani nationals had been killed in Galkayo. The exact death toll was unclear because there have been conflicting figures from different sources, he said.

“It is a tragic incident. We are shocked. We are sad,” Chaudhry told the AP.

The Pakistan High Commission in Kenya is also responsible for tracking Somali affairs because it is not safe to have an embassy in Somalia.

Galkayo District Commissioner Hussein Abdullahi said police are protecting the survivors of the attack and have surrounded the mosque.

Nahar Hussein Gutale, whose house is near Tawfiq Mosque, said he left his home after hearing gunshots and saw seven men fleeing from the mosque’s compound. He said he went to the mosque and found five men lying in a pool of blood screaming.

“At that time, there were few people in the mosque, as most people had prayed and returned to home, Gutale told the AP.

Police arrived at the scene, fired in the air to disperse the small crowd that had gathered around the bodies, Gutale said. The police remained there for an hour, then loaded the bodies onto a pickup truck and drove away.

Somali militiamen rarely target religious preachers, known as Tabliq.

“We are shocked. Why were these religious men, who are not involved in the conflict (in Somalia), targeted? It is a shame to Somalis,” said Sheik Muqtar, a Galkayo resident.

Sheik Salad Dufan, a Galkayo resident, said Somali Islamic preachers who travel around the country usually preach at Tawfiq Mosque once a month.

“Sometimes they come with foreigners, mainly from Pakistan and Afghanistan,” Dufan told the AP by phone.

Somalia has been ravaged by violence and anarchy since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, then turned on each other. A moderate Islamist was elected president in January in hopes that he could unite the country’s feuding factions, but the violence has continued unabated.

The country’s lawlessness has spread security fears around region and raised concerns that al-Qaida is trying to gain a foothold in the Horn of Africa. The anarchy also has allowed piracy to flourish off the country’s coast.

The government and African Union peacekeepers hold only a few blocks of Mogadishu, while Islamic insurgents control much of the country and operate openly in the capital in their quest to impose a strict form of Islam in Somalia.

The U.S. considers one of the most powerful Islamist groups, al-Shabab, of being a terrorist group with links to al-Qaida, but al-Shabab denies that.