Somalia's singing lawmaker Saado Ali Warsame is shot dead in ambush

A veteran Somali protest singer who had become a member of parliament was shot dead in central Mogadishu on Wednesday by Islamist gunmen who blocked her car and sprayed it with bullets.

Saado Ali Warsame was one of fewer than 30 women lawmakers in the 275-seat parliament.

Believed to be in her 70s, she was renowned for songs that landed her in jail when she challenged the former dictator Siad Barre before he was toppled in 1991 and Somalia plunged into conflict.

Attackers from the al-Shabab Islamist group, which has staged a series of assaults during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, claimed the killing.

"We are behind the killing of lawmaker Saado Ali Warsame and we shall eliminate them one by one," said Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabab's spokesman for military operations.

He said the group was targeting lawmakers because they had supported the "invasion of enemies", a reference mainly directed at African Union forces which are battling the Islamist group and remain the backbone of security in the embattled nation.