Somali rebels kill two Britons and two Kenyans

By Ibrahim Mohamed

JOWHAR, Somalia (Reuters) - Islamist insurgents killed two Britons and two Kenyans in an overnight raid on a school in central Somalia, residents said on Monday.

Heavily armed militants from the al Shabaab group also attacked the homes of government officials in Baladwayne, a small town near the Ethiopian border.

"We are terrified because people who were involved in educating us were killed," said one local man, Nur Muse.

The killings were the latest in a string of hit-and-run raids by rebels who have stopped a Western-backed interim government asserting its authority on the chaotic Horn of Africa country.

The militants, who are listed by Washington as a terrorist group with ties to al Qaeda, had left Baladwayne by morning.

Residents said the two Britons, who were both ethnic Somalis, left their homes in Britain a year ago to build the school in the remote town.

Abdihakim Mahamud, a nephew of the dead man, identified him as Daud Hassan Ali. He said his uncle's friend, Rehena Ahmed, had been in her 20s. She was shot in the head, while Ali and the two Kenyan men were shot in the chest.

"Their bodies are lying at the hospital," Mahamud said.

"CROSSFIRE"

A senior commander of the al Shabaab, Mukhtar Ali Robow, said the four victims were killed accidentally in crossfire.

"Our motive was not to kill innocent people," he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location. "Their guards shot at us and we had to fire back."

The al Shabaab is the militant wing of a sharia courts group that ruled most of southern Somalia for the second half of 2006.

It is now at the forefront of an Iraq-style insurgency of ambushes, roadside bombings and assassinations targeting President Abdullahi Yusuf's government and its Ethiopian allies.

Robow said his fighters had launched more attacks overnight in the capital Mogadishu, which has suffered most of the violence, including firing rockets at Burundian peacekeepers.

He said the rebels had also seized a pick-up truck mounted with an anti-aircraft gun during an assault on a police station.