(Adds that Dahir also worked for the Associated Press)

By Sahra Ahmed

KISMAYU, Somalia, June 7 (Reuters) - Suspected Islamist insurgents shot dead a local journalist working for the BBC in southern Somalia on Saturday, witnesses said.

A Reuters witness said gunmen confronted Nasteh Dahir outside his home in the port of Kismayu before shooting him in the chest and stomach. He died soon afterwards in hospital.

The BBC in neighbouring Kenya confirmed his identity.

Sobbing over the corpse, Dahir's wife Idil Abdi Ahmed said she had no idea who would want her husband dead.

"He had no problem or argument with anyone in town. We don't know why he was killed, he was innocent," she told Reuters.

A BBC spokesman in London confirmed the incident and said Dahir had worked as a freelance for the BBC and other agencies. Colleagues said he also worked for Associated Press.

"We are shocked by what has happened and are trying to ascertain further information," the BBC spokesman said.

"We are speaking to his family and our thoughts are with them at this difficult time."

Mired in conflict since the 1991 fall of a dictator, Somalia is one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists.

Local reporters have frequently been attacked by Islamist rebels who are waging an Iraq-style insurgency against the fragile interim government and its Ethiopian military allies.

In January, a roadside bomb near Kismayu killed another Somali journalist, along with a Kenyan doctor and a French logistics officer working for the charity MSF-Holland.

There was more bloodshed on Saturday in the capital Mogadishu, 500 km (300 miles) north of Kismayu, where residents said eight people died. That brought the death toll from two days of violence there to at least 16.

Kismayu -- which is controlled by the local clan and not Somalia's government -- has been quiet compared with Mogadishu, but Islamists have threatened to attack it as part of their aim of establishing Islamic rule in the Horn of Africa country.

Their insurgency has triggered a humanitarian crisis that aid workers say may be the worst in Africa.

At least a million people have been uprooted by the clashes since early last year, and their plight has been worsened by record food prices, hyperinflation and drought. (Additional reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu, Daniel Wallis in Nairobi and Jeremy Lovell in London; writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Stephen Weeks) (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/)

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