A man and woman were killed in two separate attacks in the Somali capital, which has been wracked by violence over the past eight months since the government moved in to try to assert its authority, with backing from Ethiopian allies, according to AP. Three gunmen shot Mo'alin Harun in front of his house late Saturday in northern Mogadishu as he returned from evening prayers at a nearby mosque, said Madina Guled Mohamed, Harun's wife. «He was attending the National Reconciliation Conference. I think he was targeted for that,» a sobbing Mohamed told The Associated Press on the phone. «We tried to rush him to hospital, but before we go there he died.» Harun was a prominent elder of the Abgal clan that Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi belongs to, and during Mogadishu's years of violence and anarchy had been involved in mediating clan differences that have riven Somali society. The national reconciliation conference began in July and is aimed at helping the country heal the wounds of 16 years of conflict. It is a key requirement of a transitional charter that led to the formation of the latest government in 2004, with the help of the United Nations, but the government has struggled to assert any real control. Also Saturday, a woman selling sweets on the street died in southern Mogadishu when suspected insurgents threw several grenades at a vehicle carrying a local administrator, said police spokesman Col. Abdi Wahid. He said the administrator survived the attack. Elsewhere in southern Mogadishu a land mine exploded as a vehicle carrying another local administrator passed, wounding the administrator and his two bodyguards, said Wahid. Islamic militants vowed to wage an insurgency when they were toppled in December by Ethiopian troops supporting the government. Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other and dividing the country into clan fiefdoms.
