NAIROBI, July 18, 2007 (AFP) - Four people were killed in Mogadishu on Wednesday as violence raged a day before the resumption of peace talks aimed at reconciling the different factions that have blocked a return to normalcy in Somalia.

Witnesses said two civilians and a soldier died in grenade explosions in the volatile Bakara market while another civilian was gunned down in southern Mogadishu's Baruha district.

"Three grenade explosions occurred in a medicine store and two civilians were killed, one of them a young boy. Four others were wounded, two of them seriously," said Ali Hirsi Aden, a trader in the market.

In a seperate incident, gunmen hurled a grenade at a Somali army patrol killing one soldier in the sprawling market that has been under near-daily attacks.

"It exploded, killing one soldier on the spot and wounding six civilians who were just passing by," said witness Ahmed Ibrahim.

Gunmen executed a man in Baruha neighbourhood, the latest in a string of attacks that have rocked Mogadishu since Ethiopian-backed Somali forces ousted an Islamist movement in late April after some of its heaviest fighting.

"A man who was holding a child was shot two times on the head and chest before he died. The boy who was about five-years-old could not recall anything," said Hassan Ali, a resident.

The violence erupted as delegates prepared to resume talks in northern Mogadishu on Thursday aimed at brokering lasting stability in Somalia, a nation that has been essentially lawless since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

The raging violence has killed 11 people since Monday.

On Sunday, attackers fired seven mortar shells in Mogadishu, two of which exploded near the venue of the peace talks as Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was addressing the parley.

But organisers adjourned the talks to Thursday, saying some delegates had not arrived.

Home to about a million people, Somalia has been a theatre of a bloody power struggle that has defied numerous UN-backed peace initiatives in the past 16 years.

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