Mogadishu - Gunmen shot dead the director of Radio Shabelle in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Sunday, making him the fifth journalist to be killed this year in the lawless Horn of Africa nation.

Hasan Mohamed Osman, a reporter at the radio station, told the German Press Agency dpa that Muktar Mohamed Hirabe was gunned down while walking in the Bakara market area, a notorious insurgent stronghold.

A fellow Radio Shabelle journalist, Ahmed Omar Hashi-Ahmed Tajir, was also wounded in the attack.

Journalists and aid workers are often deliberately targeted for assassination in Somalia, where Islamist militants are waging a bloody insurgency against the weak transitional government.

Abdirisak Warsameh Mohamed of Radio Shabelle was shot dead on May 22 during fierce fighting in Mogadishu.

In February, Said Tahlil Ahmed, the director of HornAfrik Radio, was assassinated in Mogadishu, following on from the killing of another Radio Shabelle journalist on January 1.

Islamist insurgent groups al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam are trying to topple the government of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate Islamist who once worked alongside the insurgents.

Over 200 people, the majority of them civilians, have died since fighting intensified in early May. Around 100,000 people have fled north Mogadishu during the same period.

Sheik Sharif's government controls only sections of Mogadishu, while the insurgents hold sway across much of southern and central Somalia.

The insurgents say Sheikh Sharif is too close to the West and refuse to stop fighting until the African Union peacekeeping force of 4,300 soldiers from Burundi and Uganda leaves.

The insurgency has claimed the lives of over 17,000 people, mainly civilians, since early 2007 and coupled with a prolonged drought has left over 3 million Somalis dependent on food aid.

Somalia has been embroiled in chaos since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and is widely regarded as a failed state.(dpa)