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Mogadishu, (Insidesomalia.org) Three of the hijackers of a German aid worker who has been hijacked in northern Somalia on Tuesday were killed and three other wounded on Thursday in Erigabo following an operation by the Somaliland forces, says local reporter in Erigabo.
Those wounded were reported to be deported in Hargeysa, the capital of self declared republic of Somaliland.
A German aid worker who had been taken hostage by gunmen in northern Somalia was released Wednesday following an operation by the Somaliland forces in which one of the hijackers was injured, as Somaliland official said.
The aid worker's driver was wounded during the abduction when gunmen opened fire to intercept their vehicle, officials said.
Two other NGO staff -- another German and a Somali -- were also in the vehicle at the time but escaped unharmed.
Aid workers, notably foreigners, have been increasingly targeted in all parts of the restive Horn of Africa country.
Three staff of Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors without Borders) was killed in January when a roadside bomb exploded against their vehicle in the southern town of Kismayo, forcing the international NGO to pull its foreign staff out of Somalia.
The victims were a Kenyan doctor, a French logistics expert and a Somali driver.
Late last year, two women from Spain and Argentina working for MSF were abducted in Puntland. Days earlier, a French cameraman preparing a documentary on migrants was also snatched. All three were eventually released unharmed.
Somaliland and Puntland have been engaged in a sometimes violent feud over two territories -- Sool and Sanaag - which straddle their ill-defined common border.
A former British protectorate, Somaliland united with the Italian Somalia in 1960. But it unilaterally broke away 10 months after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991.
Somaliland, which adopted a provisional constitution in 1997 and ratified it four years later, now boasts its own president, government, parliament, police force, penal code and currency.
Its officials have fiercely rejected any suggestion of re-uniting with Somalia proper, and the transitional government in Mogadishu is opposed to any kind of recognition for the region.
Neighboring Puntland declared itself autonomous in August 1998 under the leadership of Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the current Somali president.
The latest abduction comes amid reports that the Islamist insurgents who had been battling Somali government troops and their Ethiopian allies in Mogadishu for months have started to expand their area of operations.
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