MOGADISHU (AFP) — Somali government forces on Thursday raided and shut a radio station that interviewed a top Islamist insurgent commander who claimed responsibility for an assassination bid on the prime minister.
The forces ordered Mogadishu-based Simba Radio off the air and arrested its chief Abdullahi Ali Farah and a journalist, according to a reporter who works there.
"The forces came this morning, opened fire, entered the radio station and arrested the boss and a journalist," said the reporter, who requested anonymity.
The radio on Wednesday evening interviewed Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, a radical Islamist leader, who said he was behind a suicide attack earlier in the day on an Ethiopian army base near a hotel where Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi was staying.
Two Ethiopian soldiers were killed in the attack in Baidoa town, about 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of the capital.
Sheikh Mukhtar -- also known as Abu Mansur after training in Afghanistan where he fought alongside the Taliban in the early 2000s -- presented himself in the interview as a spokesman for the Somali Islamist movement in Mogadishu, but he has commanded numerous other militia fighters over the past decade.
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called for the release of the pair, warning that power accorded to Somali forces was threatening journalists in Mogadishu.
"The absolute power accorded to the troops in Mogadishu logically leads to arbitrary rule, to which journalists often fall victim," RSF said in a statement.
"The serious political crisis currently shaking the Somali government gives them a free hand to act as they wish. The rule of law must be restored at once in the capital to put an end to these abuses," it added.
Last month, Somali security forces besieged and opened fire at Shabelle radio, destroying equipment and forcing it to close for 15 days after they accused one of Shabelle reporters of hurling a grenade at a police patrol.
Rights groups have called for protection for journalists in Somalia, where at least seven reporters have been killed this year. A dozen journalists have also been arrested and five others have been ambushed and robbed.
So far this year, Somalia ranks as the the second deadliest country worldwide after Iraq for journalists, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Since Islamists militants were defeated early this year, their fighters have carried out a string of guerrilla attacks in Mogadishu, targeting government officials, Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers.
The violence comes against a tense political backdrop after a clan reconciliation conference in August failed to surmount bitter divisions.
The troubled Horn of Africa country has had no consistent central authority since former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991, touching off a deadly power struggle that has defied numerous internationally-backed peace initiatives.
