Somalia: Police fire shots at former president’s home in Mogadishu

MOGADISHU, Somalia – A Somali opposition party said police have fired shots at the residence of its leader Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in Mogadishu, the country’s capital on Wednesday, Garowe Online reports.

Abdinasir Mohamed, an official with Himilo Qaran Party has accused the police of deliberately firing at the first checkpoint that is used to protect the former president’s residence along Mogadishu airport road.

“Somali police officers on a pick-up have opened fire on soldiers guarding the house of the former leader and the main headquarters of our party in Mogadishu on Wednesday afternoon,” said Mohamed.

He insisted that the security guards at the party’s HQ exercised restraint and did not return fire with the police to avoid a clash that “put fire into” the warming political temperature between FGS and opposition.

Meanwhile, the country’s attorney general Suleiman Mohamed has admitted that his bodyguards on a police vehicle have opened the fire, but he refuted the claims that the shooting was a “deliberate target”.

The incident comes days after Forum for National Political Parties has reported troop movement near the residence of the former leader, in what the FNP described an “attempt” to attack Ahmed by FGS.

The former president who led the country between 2009 and 2012 is the chair of FNP has been a fierce critic of the Federal Government of Somalia led by President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo.

GAROWE ONLINE