Third intelligence official gunned down in Mogadishu in three days

Unidentified pistol-wielding men shot dead an officer serving with Somalia’s Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) in Mogadishu Tuesday night, the third officer killed in two days.

The officer was killed in the capital’s Dharkeynley district and the assailants escaped from the scene immediately.

Eyewitnesses said two pistol-wielding men in their 20s gunned down the officer and escaped from the crime scene.

“The assailants shot and killed the officer before they fled from the area,” said a witness who asked for anonymity. No arrests have been made so far. “We reached the scene but the gunmen had already escaped,” a police officer Omar Ali said.

No group has yet claimed credit for the murder of the officer, but police have pointed finger at Al-Shabaab who often target security force members in the capital.

Mogadishu has witnessed an increase of rampant assassinations from Al-Shabaab as the group denounced the administration led by President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo.