Gunmen shot dead the director of a top independent radio station in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday, witnesses and his station said.
Staff at Horn Afrik private radio station said unidentified gunmen had shot and killed Said Tahlil near Mogadishu's Bakara market area.
"We got news that the director of Horn Afrik radio was gunned down and we inform you that the radio will be off air in solidarity with our director," an announcer said.
Horn Afrik employee Mohamed Abdullahi told AFP: "He left the radio station and we got information that his body is lying not too far from here. We are shocked."
One of his predecessors was also killed in 2007.
Somalia is one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists. Media houses have been routinely shut down by the authorities and many reporters, Somali and foreign, have been kidnapped by armed groups.
The war-wracked Horn of Africa country was ranked as the world's second-deadliest country for journalists in 2007 by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
A journalist working for Shabelle, another independent radion, was killed in the town of Afgoye near Mogadishu on January 1.
A British journalist and Spanish photographer were kidnapped in the northern semi-autonomous region of Puntland in November and freed in January.
Two freelance journalists, an Australian and a Canadian, kidnapped near the capital last year are still being held.
Somalia has lacked and effective central government since the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre plunged the country into vicious violence.
Olol Film.com
Feb 04 2009 
