EXECUTIONS

In the capital Mogadishu, the U.N.-backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed sentenced six soldiers to death for the murder of a fellow soldier.

"We have sentenced six military men to death for killing a government soldier," Ali Hassan Isak, the chairman of Somalia's military court, told Reuters on Monday.

He said three of the men had been sentenced in absentia because they escaped arrest immediately after the incident. The six were accused of opening fire on a soldier who was in a car on Sunday, killing him.

"We are applying both Islamic sharia law and the military Act 19 which states one should be killed for killing another," he said.

Somalia has been mired in chaos for nearly two decades and the latest attempt to establish a government has been hampered by insurgents who control most of south and central Somalia.

The chaos has also allowed pirate gangs to operate with impunity, hijacking merchant ships, fishing vessels and yachts and demanding hefty ransoms for their return.

On Monday, two men tried to hijack a plane flying to Djibouti from Bossaso airport, aviation officials said.

"The pilot saved the plane by landing it at the same Bossaso airport," Mohamud Sheikh Ali, general manager of the Civil Aviation and Meteorology Authority, told Reuters.

On landing, police arrested the hijackers after an exchange of fire which injured one of the attackers. Officials said the hijackers' aim was to land the plane in the pirate-infested town of Lasqoray and kidnap two German passengers.

Source: Reuters (Additional reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu; writing by Wangui Kanina; editing by Tim Pearce)

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