The body of the Maltese man who was killed in Somalia will be brought over to Malta by the company which employed him, P&O.

Paul Anthony Formosa, 52, was killed on Monday by gunshots in an attack which an Islamist militant group, Al Shabab, took responsibility for.

Other reports in the Somali media indicate that Formosa was killed by fishermen, and not the militant group.

The two attackers died, one of the on the scene and the other in hospital, following an exchange of gunfire with security personnel.

The attack on Dubai's P&O Ports came as the United Arab Emirates has rapidly expanded its port operations and military presence in Somalia and across East Africa.

Al-Shabab said it targeted the man in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region because he worked for a company that "occupies" the area's Bosaso Port.

P&O Ports acknowledged one of its employees was killed and three others injured in an "incident" Monday at its operations in Bosaso, 1,100 kilometers (690 miles) northeast of the capital city, Mogadishu, on the Gulf of Aden.

Malta's Foreign Ministry identified the dead man as a Maltese citizen who worked as a construction project manager for P&O Ports. It said he had been "shot dead."

Malta Freeport Terminals named the man as Paul Anthony Formosa, a former employee.

Al-Shabab, or "the youth" in Arabic, is a Sunni Islamic extremist group in Somalia born out of that country's years of anarchy following its 1991 civil war. The al-Qaida-linked group has launched attacks across Somalia and into Uganda and Kenya.

P&O Ports signed a 30-year, $336 million deal in 2017 to develop the Bosaso Port. Meanwhile, Dubai's DP World also is operating a major port in Somalia's breakaway territory of Somaliland.