Somali elder shot dead, fighting rocks Mogadishu

MOGADISHU, Aug 19 (Reuters) Gunmen shot dead a top clan leader and key player in efforts to bring peace to Somalia's factions, jeopardising fragile talks that many hoped would quell the violence in the chaotic country, witnesses said today.

Maalim Harun Maalim Yusuf was shot twice in the head by three men armed with pistols outside his home in north Mogadishu last night, his wife Madina Guled Mahamed said. It was the first time a top clan elder has been killed in living memory.

''The killing of this elder is going to create fear amongst the delegates. It will definitely damage the talks,'' said a peace activist who said he was too scared to be named.

Choking back tears, Mahamed told Reuters: ''We don't know why they killed him -- he was a delegate at the peace talks.'' Shoot-outs in Somalia's lawless capital have become increasingly common since allied Somali-Ethiopian forces seized the city from Islamists in December, sparking an insurgency that has killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands.

Residents say elders are normally too revered to be targets.

''This is really the first time an important elder like him has been killed,'' said Abdirahman Ahmed, another delegate at talks. ''This is a big blow to peace.'' Yusuf's shock killing has sparked fears of bloody reprisals in a city teeming with semi-automatic weapons and still wracked by insurgency, though no one knows who was behind the shooting.

Yusuf hails from the same sub-clan as Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi. He was chief negotiator of a sub-clan of the Abgal clan at a reconciliation conference aiming to bring an end to the bloodshed in Somalia. Delegates say he played a key role.

Clan elders have for centuries been the arbiters of most aspects of Somali life, guiding decisions that are usually made collectively within clans and their complex sub-divisions.

Analysts say no peace will be possible in Somalia without elders -- respect for their authority is one of the few influences able to restrain Somali militiamen.

Heavy fighting rocked the neighbouring Horuwa district of Mogadishu hours after Yusuf was killed. Insurgents fired mortars at police who took up positions around a children's hospital.

''Two guards and a man were wounded after mortars landed at the hospital. The insurgents attacked the police from two sides and we were caught in the middle,'' a security guard who asked not to be named told Reuters.

Somalia has been without a functioning government since military ruler Mohamed Siad Barre's regime collapsed in 1991, causing the Horn of Africa country to disintegrate into a patchwork of quarrelling fiefdoms.

Deadly fire fights have intensified in the past few months.

At least 16 people were killed and 30 others wounded yesterday in a gun battle between rival clans in central Somalia.

REUTERS SBC PM2222