Bosaso)ANN)-A senior Emirati representative of Dubai-based harbor operator DP World Ltd. was killed in the port town of Bosaso in Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland, police said.

“A young man armed with a pistol opened fire on the manager as he was walking near the port,” Mohamed Ahmed Hassan, a police officer in Bosaso, said by phone on Monday. “One of his guards was also wounded in the attack.”

The official was rushed to hospital, where he died, said Ahmed Isse, another Bosaso police officer.

The al-Shabaab Islamist group’s spokesman, Abdulaziz Abu Musab, said the al-Qaeda linked fighters were responsible for the attack, according to a broadcast on Radio Andalus. The militants have been waging war since 2006 to impose their version of Islamic law in the Horn of Africa nation.

The assassin was killed at the scene Paul Anthony Formosa was the construction project manager for DP World. shortly after killing the DP World official and wounding three of his body guards, police said.

A unit of Dubai’s state-owned DP World won a 30-year concession in 2017 to develop and manage a multi-purpose port in Bosaso, Puntland’s commercial capital. The accord was opposed by many residents in protests during which at least one person died. DP World has a similar accord for Berbera port in the neighboring Somali territory of Somaliland.

Source: Bloomberg reporting