Mogadishu (AFP) - Gunmen assassinated a top Somali intelligence official in Mogadishu on Wednesday in an escalation of attacks on government targets in the lawless capital, witnesses said.

A district head of the National Security Agency (NSA), Ahmed Mohamed Odaysge, was shot in Hamarweyne in southern Mogadishu where he led operations to enforce law and order.

His office confirmed the killing and vowed to pursue the gunmen who fled after the attack.

"We are investigating the killing and, as of now, we are treating it as a political assassination," said a district official, who declined to be named.

A former top NSA official was also killed late on Tuesday in another shooting. Mohamed Muhamoud Jumale, an official in the former regime of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, ousted in 1991.

Sources told AFP that Jumale had been working with the government to restore law and order in the war-wracked city.

The Somali government recently revived the NSA, a secret agency dreaded during Barre's regime, to help combat insurgents who have vowed to crush efforts to restore stability in the country.

Ethiopian-Somali troops ousted the Islamic Courts Union at the start of the year and in March and April fought heavy battles with Islamist sympathisers and clan fighters on the streets of Mogadishu.

"The remnants of the Islamic Courts Union are making tremendous efforts to destabilise us, but they will fail," Mogadishu mayor Mohamed Omar Habeb told AFP.

Government officials, African Union peacekeeping troops, Ethiopian troops and UN officials have been targeted in a growing number of Somali attacks, mainly in the seaside capital.

Source: AFP