MOGADISHU: A Somali lawmaker and prominent singer-songwriter was shot dead on Wednesday in the capital Mogadishu in the latest attack by Shebab insurgents against the government.

The shooting, with gunmen spraying Saado Ali Warsame’s car with bullets before escaping, is the latest in a string of shootings or bombings targeting government officials.

Witnesses said armed men ambushed Warsame’s car as it was travelling in the south of the capital, killing her and her driver.

Warsame is the fourth Somali lawmaker to be killed since the start of the year. Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Shebab, who threatened earlier this year to kill the country’s MPs “one by one”, claimed responsibility for the attack. “She was killed because she was an MP — all the lawmakers are sentenced to death until they leave parliament,” Shebab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab said. “Whether she was singing or not is not our business.”

Published in Dawn, July 24th , 2014