The killing of an Italian Catholic nun in Mogadishu on Sunday may well be linked to anger among Muslims about Pope Benedict's recent remarks on Islam, a senior source among Somalia's Islamists said.

"There is a very high possibility the people who killed her were angered by the Catholic Pope's recent comments against Islam," the source said.

Gunmen killed the nun a children's hospital in Mogadishu, the latest attack on foreign personnel in volatile Somalia. Her guard also died from pistol shots.

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The assassinations were a blow to Mogadishu's new Islamist rulers' attempt to prove they have pacified one of the world's most lawless cities since chasing out warlords in June.

The bodyguard died instantly, but the nun, from the Missionaries of the Consolation order based in Nepi near Rome, was rushed into an operating theatre after being hit by three or four bullets in the chest, stomach and back.

"She died in the hospital treatment room," doctor Ali Mohamed Hassan told Reuters. "She was shot outside the hospital, going to her house just across the gate."

A nun from the Missionaries order identified her as sister Leonella Sgorbati, born in 1940, in Piacenza in northern Italy. In Somalia since 2002, she trained nurses at the SOS Kindergarten hospital.

The Italian government said the nun and two other Italian nuns working with her had been repeatedly advised to leave Somalia, which was formerly ruled by Italy.

Sunday's death provoked scenes of mourning at the hospital.

"I was in class when I heard about six to eight shots, I ran out and saw sister bleeding," Fatuma Hassan, 21, said. "We're so sad. It's a big loss."

Two suspects were later arrested by Islamist militiamen, but there were no details of their identity.

One top Islamist source told Reuters there was "a very high possibility" the attack was linked to controversy over a recent speech by Pope Benedict which angered Muslims who thought it showed their religion to be innately violent.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told Italian news agency ANSA he hoped the nun's death was an isolated event but feared it was "the fruit of violence and irrationality arising from the current situation [of Pope], which is without motive or reason."

But in Italy, a nun from Sgorbati's order who asked not to be named said: "We have no reason to suspect any link."

She added: "There were no threats, we had no reason to expect something like this, though of course there are risks."

Borne out of local courts practicing strict sharia law, the Islamist movement in June seized Mogadishu from U.S.-backed warlords who had run it for the past 15 years.

Though the Islamists have managed to get guns off the streets and bring down roadblocks often run by young, erratic militiamen loyal to warlords, Mogadishu remains full of weapons.

The nun's death - and the June killing of a Swedish cameraman - damage their claim that Mogadishu is now safe for foreigners.

Critics of the Islamists say they harbor al-Qaida-linked militants in their ranks. The Islamists deny that, saying the West does not understand them and believes U.S. propaganda.

Islamist spokesman Bedri Hashi said the killing may have been "orchestrated by people to discredit the Islamic Courts."

The Italian nun was the latest in a list of foreign aid workers and other international staff to be killed in Somalia.

Another Italian aid worker, Annalena Tonelli, was shot dead in the self-declared enclave of Somaliland in 2003.

The Islamists are engaged in a political standoff with the Western-backed interim government of Somalia which is based in Baidoa and has little military muscle of its own.