By Sahal Abdulle

MOGADISHU, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead a popular Somali radio journalist and talk show host outside his independent FM station on Saturday in an apparent assassination, colleagues said.

Mahad Ahmed Elmi's broadcasts on Horn Afrik radio had upset both the government and Islamist insurgents. There was no indication as to who had killed him.

Gunmen accosted Elmi as he neared the door of his office at 7.15am (0415 GMT), said colleagues who were with him.

"We were outside when four gunmen jumped out," said one of them, too terrified to reveal his name.

"They fired four shots against Mahad's head from up close, then they just fled," he said at the Mogadishu hospital where Elmi's body lay.

Violence has flared in Mogadishu between insurgents and Ethiopian-backed government troops despite an ongoing peace conference aiming to bring Somali factions together.

Colleagues said Elmi's death was the first deliberate killing of a local journalist since 1993.

Ali Iman Sharmarke, a co-owner of the radio station, said the incident would make reporting on Somalia's bloody conflict all the more difficult.

"This is a tragedy. It demonstrates the conditions that Somali reporters are working under," he told Reuters. "The perpetrators want to silence our voices in order to commit their crimes ... against the Somali people."

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