Bashiir Noor Gedi

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Gedi, acting manager of the independent station Radio Shabelle, was assassinated outside his home in Mogadishu by unknown gunmen, according to station employees and local journalists. Gedi was attempting to return to his home in the Hamar Jadid neighborhood after he and other Radio Shabelle employees had been holed up in the station for roughly a week because of a series of threats, according to journalists who spoke with his family.

Radio Shabelle, considered one of the leading stations in Somalia, had been harassed, threatened, and attacked by both government security forces and insurgents because of its critical reporting of the ongoing violence in Mogadishu. The station was forced to close for 15 days before resuming broadcasts on October 3.

Radio Shabelle halted its normal programming after the slaying, which occurred around 7 p.m., and started airing verses from the Quran, the National Union of Somali Journalists reported.