Rivalry among Somali clan-based factions left eight people dead in separate incidents in the capital and a southern town, witnesses and local elders said Sunday.
In Mogadishu, unidentified gunmen killed four people Saturday when they stopped their car in Bulohubey alleyway, which divides territory controlled by warlord Hussein Mohamed Aidid from the fiefdom of Musa Sudi Yalahow in the south of the city.
Those who died were members of Aidid's Habr Gedir clan. The killers also took the guns belonging to the deceased.
Yalahow condemned the murder and promised to investigate.
"I instructed the Islamic court officials to investigate the matter and punish those responsible for the killing. It is most likely the work of bandits," Yalahow told AFP.
Four other people were in killed in a clash between two rival sub-clans in the southern Somalia town of Jowhar on Saturday, according to witnesses contacted by telephone.
Leaders of clan-based factions have ruled different parts of Somalia and battled for authority since the collapse of any central government with the 1991 overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Sixteen people died on Friday when Aidid's militiamen fought with those of his other Mogadishu rival, Ali Mahdi Mohamed.
Violence has continued since the election last month of Abdulkassim Salat Hassan as the first president of the largely anarchic Horn of Africa nation in years.
Many Somali civic groups and community leaders welcomed Salat's election in Djibouti by members of a new transitional assembly, but some of the warlords who have carved up the country into fiefdoms were less keen about it and said they would not work with him.
On Friday, however, the influential Aidid made his peace with the new head of state under the auspices of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi at talks in Sirte, Libya's JANA news agency reported on Saturday -- MOGADISHU (AFP)
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