Somalia aid widens net

MOGADISHU (AFP) - Food is reaching remote parts of famine-hit Somalia with the help of some 36,000 US-led foreign troops, UN officials said yesterday, but in further violence a Chinese journalist was shot and wounded.

The Xinhua news agency reporter was wounded in the legs and his Somali driver killed when unidentified attackers fired at their car in the capital, Mogadishu, on Wednesday, a US army spokesman said.

Several exchanges of fire were reported between foreign troops and Somali gunmen overnight. In one incident, US marines fired at a car that tried to force its way through a checkpoint, injuring a Somali.