Reports from Bosasso, the commercial capital of the semi-autonomous Somali state of Puntland indicate that unidentified assailants shot dead a revered Muslim Cleric in front of a mosque last night. Residents say that the slain Imam Sheik Assad was attacked by three masked men armed with pistols as he was coming out of the Al-Rashiid mosque in the city center after prayers last night.

“I was one of those who said the Isha prayers at the Al-Rashiid Mosque, I was next to the Imam when one of three masked men opened him fire and he suddenly died on the spot” Yusuf Ali Isak who witnessed the killing told Newstime Africa by telephone this morning. “It was a very shocking moment and we are condemning the brutal killing of our beloved Imam” the eye witness said adding that the assailants escaped after the killing.

The region’s police chief Colonel Osman Hassan Awke who talked to reporters on Tuesday morning said that police are hunting the criminals and reliable information about their whereabouts have been gathered, although no one has yet been captured.

The Puntland region was more peaceful in comparison with the war-devastated south-central Somali regions where more than half a million people mainly civilians have been killed since the 1991 downfall of the former Somali military ruler the late dictator General Mohamed Siyad Barre.

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