Somali gunmen attack Ethiopians, kill official

MOGADISHU, June 14 (Reuters) Somali insurgents shot dead a local official today and attacked Ethiopian troops overnight just hours after a second attempt to start a peace conference was postponed, residents said.

Islamist-led insurgents have been fighting the Somali government and its Ethiopian allies since the New Year when they were ousted from Mogadishu in a two-week offensive.

Large-scale battles have given way to guerrilla-style hits in recent weeks, and the overnight strikes on the Ethiopian troop positions were the heaviest attacks since last month.

One civilian died when attackers simultaneously opened fire and launched rocket-propelled grenades around midnight at three positions held by Ethiopian troops in Somalia to support the interim government, witnesses said.

''It was a brief but heavy exchange,'' resident Ibrahim Maalim said. ''Gunmen simultaneously attacked Ethiopian troops staying at the old pasta factory, the stadium and the former defence headquarters. I saw one civilian killed.'' The local official, a district commissioner from north Mogadishu, was gunned down early this morning in a separate attack, locals added.

The violence, which also included a grenade attack on Ethiopian trucks that killed one civilian yesterday, followed the one-month postponement of a national reconciliation conference that had been due to start today.

The government-organised and internationally-backed peace conference, which was first postponed from April, had been intended to bring together in Mogadishu 1,355 delegates from different clans and factions across Somalia.

Foreign diplomats had expected the postponement, even though they are pinning their hopes on the conference as the best way to try to secure lasting peace in Somalia, which has been in anarchy since the ousting of a dictator in 1991.

REUTERS SG RK1300