MOGADISHU
A senior Somali security official was gunned down by unidentified gunmen late Monday in the south of the country, security sources said.
Issa Kamboni, head of intelligence and security agency in the southern region of Jubaland, was shot dead in the port town of Kismayo, the sources said.
Two of his bodyguards were also killed in the attack, and a third was critically injured, they added.
Al-Shabaab militant group, in an online statement, has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Kismayo has been the scene of a string of recent attacks targeting security and administrative officials in the region.
Somalia has remained in the grip of violence since the outbreak of civil war in 1991.
The situation appears to have improved recently, however, with the installation of a new government and intervention by African Union troops tasked with countering Somalia's Al-Shabaab militant group.
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