Somali gunmen kidnap two French security advisers

By Abdi Guled

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali gunmen stormed into a Mogadishu hotel on Tuesday and kidnapped two French officials working as security advisers for the Somali government, witnesses and officials said.

A Somali government official, who asked not to be named, said the two Frenchmen had been posing as reporters for their own protection.

"They were security consultants who arrived in Somalia to train State House security guards, not journalists," the official said.

The French Foreign Ministry confirmed that two French officials working as security advisers to the Somali government had been kidnapped.

A ministry statement issued in Paris said the men were on an "official mission" when they were seized by a group of armed men. "They were providing help in security matters to the transitional federal government of President Sheikh Sharif," it added.

"As soon as we found out about this, all the state services concerned were mobilised, including our embassy in Nairobi, which deals with Somalia," the statement said.

With hardline Islamist insurgents battling government troops on a daily basis, Mogadishu is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. The coastal capital has a history of kidnappings of foreign aid-workers and journalists.

Several gunmen, some in uniform, entered the Sahafi Hotel, threatened the guards and led the two men away from their rooms, hotel manager Mohamed Hassan Gaafaa told Reuters.