Senior UN Official Killed in Somalia

A senior United Nations official has been killed by unknown gunmen in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Eyewitnesses say Osman Ali Ahmed, who heads the U.N. Development Program for Somalia, was shot and killed as he left a Mogadishu mosque on Sunday. Attacks on aid workers and humanitarian officials are fairly common in Somalia, where Islamist militants are fighting to dislodge the country’s Ethiopian-backed interim government. [PE]