Mogadishu, 26 October 2007 - Two Somali soldiers were killed and eight others wounded Thursday while a government official survived an assassination attempt separately in central and southern Somalia, police and witnesses said.

"Two government soldiers died after a roadside bomb exploded as their vehicle was passing," Muse Yarow, a Beledweyne resident, told Xinhua by phone. "Two other soldiers were severely wounded in the explosion."

Hospital sources in the town bordering Ethiopia said the wounded soldiers were being treated at the hospital.

In Afgoye, a town in Lower Shabelle province 30 km northwest of Mogadishu, the Afgoye District Commissioner, Mohamed Omar, survived an assassination attempt but six of his bodyguards were wounded in the blast.

"The Afgoye DC survived an attempt on his life but six of his bodyguards were wounded in the explosion," Abdullahi Ibrahim, Somali police spokesman, told Xinhua. "An investigation in underway and the culprits will be put before the law."

Soon after the explosion Ethiopian and Somali troops based in the small town cordoned off the area and carried out searches for explosives and suspected insurgents.

An upsurge of violence has been going on since early this year in southern Somalia, particularly the capital, where almost daily attacks on foreign and Somali government soldiers and officials claimed lives of many people including civilians.

Meanwhile, in the southern Somali town of Baidoa, the seat of the transitional federal parliament, a group of members of parliament supporting the Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, formed an alliance which they say is designed to "protect the rule of law."

Abdullahi Shiek Ismail, deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Constitution and Federal Affairs, told reporters in Baidoa that the alliance "will work to insure the separation of powers."

The formation of this grouping comes as the differences between President Abdullahi Yusuf and his Prime Minster Gedi is deteriorating, with Gedi on Wednesday flying to Addis Ababa for the second time in two weeks.

Source: Xinhua

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