Somali woman dies in botched rocket attack

[General Duke]

Somali woman dies in botched rocket attack

 

Friday, August 17, 2007

 

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A woman was killed and a police officer was wounded in a botched rocket attack by insurgents in Somalia's capital, police said on Friday.

Insurgents opened fire on a police station late on Thursday in the latest episode of sporadic fighting between suspected Islamist militants and Somalia's Ethiopian-backed interim government.

 

"A woman was killed after a rocket fired by the insurgents missed its target and landed on her house, which was next door," senior police officer Abdi Hassan told Reuters.

 

A police officer was wounded in the attack, he said, adding that he was not aware of any other casualties from the ensuing gunfight in northern Mogadishu -- a stronghold of Islamists fighting the government.

 

On Thursday, Uganda said it would send 250 extra soldiers to bolster a 1600-strong African Union peacekeeping mission plagued by the failure of other nations to commit troops.

 

Somalia has been without a functioning government since the fall of military ruler Mohamed Siad Barre's regime in 1991, but violence has worsened since allied Somali-Ethiopian troops ousted Islamist fighters from Mogadishu in December.

 

Source: Reuters, Aug 17, 2007