Famed Somali singer, lawmaker assassinated

No one claims responsibility for the attack

MOGADISHU, July 23, (AFP): Somali lawmaker and prominent singer-songwriter Saado Ali Warsame was shot dead Wednesday in the capital Mogadishu in the latest attack against the government, police and witnesses said.

The shooting, with gunmen spraying her car with bullets before escaping, is the latest in a string of shootings or bombings targeting government officials.

Witnesses said armed men ambushed Warsame’s car as it was travelling in the south of the capital, killing her and her driver.

“Lawmaker Saado Ali Warsame was killed with her driver by unidentified gunmen,” police officer Mohamed Hassan said.

Warsame is the fourth Somali lawmaker to be killed since the start of the year.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab threatened earlier this year to kill the country’s MPs “one by one”.

The Shebab have vowed to intensify attacks during the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

“I saw the gunmen driving in a car following the MP, then they opened fire... she died instantly and the gunmen then escaped,” said Abdukadir Ali, a witness.

“The dead body of the lawmaker and her driver were left in a pool of blood.”

Warsame was famous for her songs in the 1970s, when she sang about political and social justice in opposition to the hardline rule of then dictator Siad Barre before he was toppled in 1991, an event that triggered the all-out civil war in Somalia that still drags on today.

Shebab fighters fled fixed positions in Mogadishu three