Islamist security forces fired on a crowd of people protesting a ban on the sale of the mild narcotic leaf khat in the Somali capital on Thursday, killing one and wounding three, witnesses said.
About 60 khat vendors, many of them women, had gathered to demonstrate against the ban in Mogadishu's southern Black Sea neighbourhood when Islamist gunmen moved in to quell the protest, witnesses said.
"We were demonstrating against the Islamic courts' ban on the sale of khat that hurts the livelihoods of many people," protestor Nur Aden Wajis said. "They opened fire on us," he told AFP.
Ismail Hassann, a Black Sea resident who was also involved in the protest, said one person had died from bullet wounds and that three had been injured, one of them seriously.
"Three were injured and one of the wounded is critical condition," he told AFP.
The crowd reacted by setting a number of tires ablaze, sending plumes of black smoke into the air, witnesses said.
Another khat vendor, Ahmed Abdullahi Kahin, complained that the Islamists were being unfair in their blanket ban on khat, which many Somali men chew for its narcotic effect.
"They have created no alternative work for us and only imposed harsh laws," he told AFP.