MOGADISHU, Somalia July 11 (Garowe Online) - At least 10 people died Friday in Somalia's violent capital Mogadishu, as government forces conducting search operations came under fire and an aid worker was assassinated separately.

The fighting sparked this the morning in Mogadishu's Daynile district after Somali government troops entered the neighborhood and were attacked by insurgents.

Local sources in Daynile told Garowe Online that seven of the dead victims were "well-known civilians," including business owners.

But Daynile District Commissioner Muktar Hassan Addow claimed that the dead victims were members of the insurgency who "hurled grenades" at government soldiers.

In a separate incident, insurgents attacked government security forces on patrol in north Mogadishu's Yaaqshiid district, sparking a gunfight that wounded at least four people.

Residents said the insurgents launched mortars into an Ethiopian army base. There were no casualty reports available following the Ethiopian army's launching of artillery shells following the insurgent attack.

Aid workers

One aid worker was killed and another wounded today in separate incidents in the Somali capital.

Mohamed Mohamud Keyre, who was identified as deputy director of Somali aid agency DBG, was killed in south Mogadishu by gunmen who fled.

Earlier during the day, another aid worker named Ali Bashi was wounded by three armed men who shot him while at work inside a displaced peoples camp in the outskirts of Mogadishu, according to witnesses.

Aid workers have been increasingly targeted in Somalia in recent weeks, especially in Mogadishu where the country's Ethiopian-backed interim government is attempting to restore national order.

Somalia has lacked an effective central government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a longtime military dictator and plunged the Horn of Africa country into years of civil war.

Source: Garowe Online