Latest Mogadishu attack hits truck, wounds four

MOGADISHU, Feb 8 (Reuters) Assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade in Mogadishu today, wounding four people in a pick-up truck, police said, in the latest guerrilla-style attack in post-war Somalia.

''We don't know what hit us, we only heard a big explosion and there was blood everywhere,'' said one witness on the truck, who declined to be named.

A wave of such strikes since Islamists were ousted from Mogadishu at the New Year have underscored the massive challenge facing President Abdullahi Yusuf's government to tame one of the world's most anarchic cities.

Since defeating the Islamists, who had controlled most of south Somalia since June, the government and its Ethiopian allies have been targeted with mortars, grenades, gunfire and assassination attempts on a near-daily basis.

The latest incident took place in a busy area near Mogadishu's Tarbuunka square, where an Ethiopian vehicle had just passed, the witness said. ''There was an Ethiopian water-tanker ahead of us, maybe that was their target.'' Mogadishu police chief Ali Said said four people were hurt. ''One was seriously wounded, he lost his leg in the attack,'' he told Reuters.

Yesterday, unknown assailants fired mortar bombs, wounding at least eight people.

A resident said two children were killed.

Somali Deputy Defence Minister Salad Ali Jelle told Reuters Wednesday's attack came from a location close to an old military hospital and was aimed at the port.

Officials blame remnants of the Islamist movement, some of whom have vowed holy war.

But instability in Mogadishu could also be due to tensions between warlords and clans in a city which has been a byword for violence since the ousting of a dictator in 1991.

''It is former officials of the Islamic courts who are funding these attacks, which are carried out by hired militias,'' Jelle said, speaking before today's attack.

''The only way we can stop such attacks is by carrying a full disarmament of the people living in Mogadishu.'' The government did launch a disarmament drive shortly after capturing Mogadishu, but few guns were handed in, and the exercise was postponed pending negotiations with local clans.

REUTERS MS VC1425