Somali police shoot two suspects in kidnappings of French journalists, MSF workers

[General Duke]

Somali police shoot two suspects in kidnappings of French journalists, MSF workers

 

Thursday, January 10, 2008

 

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - Police in northern Somalia shot dead two suspected kidnappers during a heavy gunbattle on Thursday, witnesses and officials said.

 

The two men shot in the semiautonomous region of Puntland were suspected of involvement in the recent kidnappings of a French journalist and a Spanish and an Argentinean aid worker, police said.

 

Units of police in Bossaso have raided a house where members of the kidnappers were hiding, then a heavy gun battle ensued,» said Muqtar Ahmed, a local resident, who lives near the house.

«I saw the dead bodies of two people, I do not know which side they were from, but also saw a wounded man in a police uniform,» said Ahmed.

 

Local government official Yusuf Bide said the police had found the kidnappers through a tip-off. He said it was the same gang who last month abducted a French cameraman in one incident and in another a Spaniard and an Argentinean working for medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres.

A police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said police had been on the gang's trail for several days. A gunfight broke out after they surrounded the house and several of the kidnappers escaped after clan members came to their aid, he said.

Puntlands police chief, Col. Abdiasisi Said Gamey, declined to confirm any casualties but vowed to pursue the gang until all of them were brought to trial.

 

Puntland is generally considered safer than the war-wracked south, where government troops and their Ethiopian allies are battling an Islamic insurgency and thousands of Somalis have been killed this year. But in recent months the two northern regions have seen an upsurge in piracy and kidnappings, and tensions between the two have increased over a border dispute.

 

 

Source: AP, Jan 10, 2008