A senior commander of the Somali Islamist group, al-Shabab, has been shot dead at close range as he left a mosque¹ in the city of Kismayo.

索马里伊斯兰教组织沙巴布一位高级指挥官被近距离射杀，据悉当时他正要离开基斯马尤城一座清真寺。

Al-Shabab has been fighting Hizbul-Islam

Unidentified gunmen shot Sheikh Daud Ali Hasan several times, inside an area of Somalia held by his own forces.

Sheikh Hasan was in charge of front-line operations in the town of Dhobley, near the Kenyan border.

Al-Shabab said it arrested several people and would bring them before a court, but did not identify them.

Rival Islamist groups in the vicinity（在附近） , including Hizbul-Islam, have not said whether they were behind the killing².

A witness, Ahmed Daud, said: "At least three masked men armed with pistols shot Sheikh Daud Ali Hasan several times in the head and the chest as he was coming out of a mosque in Kismayo."

The BBC's Mohamed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says Hizbul-Islam fighters launched an attack in Dhobly hours after the assassination³（暗杀，行刺） - and claimed they had killed number of al-Shabab militants⁴.

Al-Shabab and Hizbul-Islam are fighting against the UN-backed, weak Somali government and the African Union soldiers.

They have fought together in the capital against government forces and the AU peacekeepers, but in the southern Jubba regions the groups continue to fight each other.

The dispute began last year when al-Shabab forcibly（强制地） took control of Kismayo from Hizbul-Islam.