Somali insurgency escalates, 15 civilians die

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Wed Sep 24, 2008 12:40pm BST
By Abdi Sheikh and Abdi Mohamed

MOGADISHU, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Islamists attacked African peacekeepers
in Mogadishu, sparking a battle that killed 11 civilians and sent many
fleeing the city in Somalia's escalating insurgency, witnesses said on
Wednesday.

"We have no hope now and I think this is the end of Mogadishu,"
mother-of-seven Fatuma Kassim said, joining a stream of residents
escaping the coastal capital after shells and gunfire rocked the city on
Tuesday night.

In Baidoa, capital of Somalia's parliament, four people died on
Wednesday when a bomb exploded in a donkey-cart, police said.

In a bloody month even by Somalia's extreme standards, insurgents have
increasingly turned their fire on African Union (AU) troops. Analysts
view that as a tactic to prevent more foreign intervention in a nation
in civil conflict since 1991.

On Tuesday night, insurgents shelled an AU base from various sides,
prompting heavy return fire and tank incursions into a market area
viewed as a rebel stronghold.

The AU, whose 2,200 Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers have done little
to quell the war, said it suffered no casualties.

The pan-African body wants to hand over to the United Nations, but that
organisation is wary of entering a quagmire some are calling "Africa's
Iraq", especially given its disastrous attempt to impose peace there in
the early 1990s.

"The insurgents have decided to hit the AU hard to intimidate Africa
from sending any more soldiers and to make the likelihood of U.N.
intervention even more remote," said a Western diplomat who tracks
Somalia.

COUNTING THE DEAD

Once again, it was Mogadishu residents counting their dead on Wednesday.
Since the insurgency began at the start of 2007, nearly 10,000 civilians
have died.

"A big shell killed five people after it landed on them as they ran to
take cover," witness Osman Farah said.

"We have just collected their corpses."

Another resident, Aden Ismail, said a missile landed on a group of
refugees in a ruined former college, killing two.

"Then another mortar dropped and injured seven others. We could not take
them to hospital because there was gunfire everywhere," he said.

Islamist spokesman Abdirahim Isse Adow said Tuesday's attack was
retribution for the shelling of a market earlier in the week, which he
blamed on the peacekeepers. Thirty civilians died in Bakara market on
Monday, with all sides blaming each other.

"It is clear that the Islamists are about to take control of the
country. The government and Ethiopian troops control only a small
portion of the city let alone the country," he said.

Drought and high food prices have compounded the effect of the conflict
on a traumatised population, one million of whom live as internal
refugees. With attacks on aid workers common, relief agencies face a
dangerous task to help Somalis.

A U.S. expert on Somalia, John Prendergast, said the insurgents now view
outside players -- from the African Union to relief groups -- as helping
the government.

"They look at most of these external actors as probably sympathetic to
the TFG (Transitional Federal Government) or at least facilitating the
TFG's goals, so shutting out as many of these people as possible,
whether NGO or U.N. actors, will only help the Islamists," he said.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Ahmed in Baidoa, Andrew Cawthorne in
Nairobi; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne and Wangui Kanina)


SOMALIA: Mogadishu rocked by “worst shelling yet”

Mogadishu has experienced the worst fighting in a long time, according
to locals, as government troops take on insurgents

NAIROBI, 23 September 2008 (IRIN) - At least 100 people were killed and
thousands fled their homes in the “worst fighting” to hit Mogadishu in
recent months, locals told IRIN.

The fighting on 22 September pitted Ethiopian troops, African Union
peacekeeping troops (AMISOM) and Transitional Federal Government (TFG)
forces against insurgents. More than 200 people were reportedly wounded,
hospital sources said.

"We are still today [23 September] collecting bodies and body parts from
the market and the area around it," Ali Mohamed Siad, chairman of the
Bakara market traders, told IRIN. "Blood and body parts are everywhere."

The fighting was concentrated around the large market - which has in the
past been the scene of fierce fighting between Ethiopian-backed
government forces and insurgents.

"The market and the surrounding neighbourhoods experienced the worst
shelling yet," Siad added.

He said the shelling by Ethiopian, AMISOM and TFG forces began when the
market was full of shoppers getting ready for the Eid festivities, to
mark the end of Ramadan next week.

Up to 82 people have so far been confirmed dead and 157 injured in the
market area alone, Siad added. The market was now closed.

Ali Sheikh Yassin, acting chairman of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human
Rights Organisation, told IRIN the market had been shelled from three
different directions. "It was obvious the market was deliberately
targeted," he said.

The shelling began after Islamic insurgents launched simultaneous
attacks on the two main AMISOM bases at K4 and the airport, said a local
journalist.

But AMISOM spokesman Barigye Bahoko told IRIN the AU peacekeepers were
not involved in the shelling. "We are absolutely not responsible for the
shelling," he said. "Responsibility should be on those who attack our
defensive positions."

Local sources said the fighting and shelling were mostly concentrated in
the districts of Hodan and Hawl Wadag in south Mogadishu.

Many families are still trying to get out, while others have begun
burying the dead and taking the injured to hospital.

A medical source told IRIN the two main hospitals, Madina in the south
and Keysaney in the north, were seeing more injured than at any time in
the recent past.

"As of last night 195 injured were brought to Madina and about 30 to
Keysaney," the source said. Roughly 46 people died in the hospitals,
"but that is only those who made it to hospitals".

Meanwhile, talks to end the conflict, which have going on in Djibouti
between representatives of the government and a faction of an
Eritrea-based opposition alliance, the Alliance for the Re-liberation of
Somalia, led by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, again failed to agree a
ceasefire.

"The main stumbling block is the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces,” said a
civil society activist at the talks.

He said the TFG seemed to be trying to find a way for a less hurried
withdrawal, while the Alliance was insisting on a 30-day withdrawal.

The parties agreed to resume talks in 15 days to hammer out a ceasefire
agreement.

Report can be found online at:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80542