Crisis talks after Somali killing

Somalia has been wracked by 14 years of war

Somalia's exiled government is meeting to discuss the security situation in the capital, Mogadishu, following the assassination of the police chief.

Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi said he was shocked by the killing of the man in charge of the government's security arrangements.

Mr Ghedi is due to return to Mogadishu from Kenya by 1 February but this could now be delayed, correspondents say.

Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991.

Seven shots

None of the many rival militias operating in the Somali capital has claimed responsibility for the killing of General Yusuf Ahmed Sarinle.

But the BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says that he has backed the deployment of African peacekeepers to protect the transitional government, which is opposed by some of the key warlords, and this could be why he was killed.

African Union peacekeepers are to be deployed in Somalia

He is the second senior police officer to be shot dead in the last two months.

Diplomats involved in the Somali peace process have suggested that a new police force could be formed using the basis of the previous force, supplemented by retrained militiamen.

Gen Sarinle's relatives said four men armed with pistols and AK-47 guns forced entry into the police chief's flat in his home village of Hamar-bile, south of Mogadishu, at 0800 (0500 GMT) on Sunday.

The general, who headed the police force under former President Abdulkassim Salat Hassan, was reportedly shot seven times in the chest and head.

The gunmen then fled in a waiting Toyota pick-up.

Another reason for Gen Sarinle's killing has been advanced: He was in charge of investigating the recent destruction of an Italian colonial cemetery by militiamen in Mogadishu.

Some 700 graves in the cemetery were destroyed and their human remains dumped elsewhere.

Mogadishu was under Italian colonial control up until independence and many of the graves belong to Italian soldiers and expatriates.

Several hundred people protested in the capital on Monday against the militia group occupying the cemetry and against the killing.