Mogadishu, (insidesomalia.org) - A presidential guard has shot and killed the brother of a Somali government minister _ apparently for making a cell phone call near a volatile junction in the capital, police and relatives said.

Abukar Abdisalan, the elder brother of Somalia's information minister, was shot in the back of the head as

He was returning from his daily morning run Wednesday, according to another brother who was with him at the time.

The shooting occurred near an intersection that has been the site of fighting before, and where a presidential convoy was scheduled to pass by shortly.

Abdisalan «was talking on his mobile phone and that apparently raised the suspicions of troops at a nearby road intersection, who were waiting for the leaders' convoy to pass,» said the brother, Aden Abdisalan.

He and another cousin who were present said a first shot missed Abukar Abdisalan, who then started running, at which point the soldier shot him in the back of the head.

Police confirmed the killing and said they planned to file charges against the soldier.

«It is intolerable that soldiers recklessly shoot civilians, » national police chief Abdi Hassan Awale said. «We will arrest the murderer.

Human rights groups and residents of the capital have accused government soldiers in the past of heavy-handedness and indiscriminate shelling to contain deadly insurgents who regularly target them and their Ethiopian allies with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

Thousands of Somalis have been killed in fighting between Islamic insurgents and Ethiopian troops supporting Somalia's shaky government over the past 12 months.

The Islamists vowed to fight an insurgency after the Ethiopians dislodged them from power in December 2006. They had taken control of the capital and much of southern Somalia for six months before they were pushed into the bush.

Also on Wednesday, masked gunmen killed a government official in the northern part of the capital, said Muse Ahmed Nur, who saw the incident. A day earlier, four gunmen killed former security chief, residents said.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew Dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another. A web of clan loyalties and the involvement of archenemies Eritrea and Ethiopia further complicates the conflict in the impoverished country.

source: AP

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