Intense gun battles erupt in Mogadishu

Heavy fighting broke out between Somali government forces and Islamist insurgents in Mogadishu early on Wednesday, officials and witnesses said. The government, which has been planning a large offensive against its foes, said the radical al-Shabaab fighters attacked their position in the north of the capital at dawn, sparking the fierce gun battles.

No casualties were reported in the clashes, which witnesses said involved the use of heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft weapons and artillery fire. "The al-Shabaab militants attacked our forces at the northern frontline of Abdulaziz this morning [Wednesday] with heavy artillery and machine guns," Somali government security official Abdi Mohamed told Agence France-Presse. "The fighting is still going on and we have no information about the casualties so far," he added. "The fighting started sporadically with artillery early morning but later intensified with both sides reinforcing their positions," said Maryan Ali, a resident in north Mogadishu. "It is very heavy fighting and I have seen many al-Shabaab fighters taking positions. There are very few families left around the Abdulaziz neighbourhood now and it looks they will start fleeing once they get chance to leave ..."

Belligerent factions in Mogadishu have been locked in a tense stand-off for weeks, amid expectations of an offensive by the government and its African Union backers to wrest the country back from the insurgency.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Somali Islamists claim deadly attack on medics

al-Shabaab, on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a mortar attack on an African Union peacekeepers' base in Mogadishu that left several people dead. On Monday, a mortar round crashed into a group of Somali civilians queuing up at one of the entrances of the AU's peacekeeping mission (Amisom) to receive medical treatment from the force's doctors. "The attack on the compound of the African infidels was carried out by our mujahedins [holy warriors]. It was a successful attack that left many of the enemy doctors dead," al-Shabaab spokesperson Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Rage said.

Officials on the base said at least one Ugandan peacekeeper was killed in the blast. They added that several Somali civilians may have died but could not provide an accurate count. A civilian source on the base said a total of five people were killed.

Al-Shabaab -- an organisation whose leader recently proclaimed allegiance to al-Qaeda supremo Osama bin Laden -- and its allies from the more political Hezb al-Islam movement routinely fire mortar shells on the base. They launched a fierce military offensive in May 2009 aimed at toppling internationally backed President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, whose embattled administration has owed its survival largely to the protection of Amisom's 5 300 peacekeepers.

Al-Shabaab accuses Amisom's Ugandan and Burundian soldiers of occupying its country and being engaged in a Christian crusade against Muslim Somalia. Earlier on Monday, the AU mission's top civilian official and the UN special envoy to Somalia visited the base and reiterated their full support to Sharif's transitional federal government.The Ugandan soldier killed on Monday and a Burundian peacekeeper killed several days earlier were evacuated by plane on Tuesday, according to an Agence France-Presse reporter at the Amisom base.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Former Somali PM to Face Charges

An official speaking for Somalia's Attorney General Office says a case against former Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi will be the first one, in series that face prominent persons, expected to be presented before the high court in the coming days.

Ali Yare says Gedi has committed crimes against the state in his premier tenure and its their responsibility to held him and others accountable. "We are going to present to the high court every crime committed against the state and our first case will be the former PM Prof. Ali Mohammed Gedi who committed crimes against the Somali public while in office," said the official.

This comes as the country's judiciary high commission holds its first meeting since the appointment of new Chief Justice Mohammed Omar Farah (Indho Buur) in the capital Mogadishu. The meeting was discussed on how best the high court will conduct its business." The judiciary high commission was formed outside the country and today's was to discuss how to start the court sessions," said Indo Buur, adding that the court will be independent and carry its operations based on justice.

Indho Buur, who was appointed to the office through an official gazette from the presidential Palace Villa Somalia last year, announced that the commission will conduct a weekly review on the court operations. The case against PM is expected to attract much attention after reports of disagreement between him and President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed emerged recently but was later settled through diplomatic ways.

Source: All Africa

Somalia's President Laments Lack of International Support

Somalia's president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said his country lacks the international support it needs to prevent powerful Al-Qaeda-backed insurgents from overthrowing his fragile government. Sharif said his government only control pocketful of Mogadishu with the rest including southern Somalia under the hands of Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam, the two main insurgent groups. "Somalia is facing crisis brought about by foreign groups currently in the country, who are determined to frustrate any peace attempts," he added.We need international support, because the country is ruined and is becoming home to some elements of Al-Qaeda who resolved to clear plans."

Some 5,100-strong African Union peacekeeping troops are currently in the war-torn country to try to shore up the UN-backed government from the powerful insurgents and control strategic sites such as airport and presidential palace. Somali presidents accuse the international community of planning to go back against their pledges, which was to support his Djibouti-formed government both financially and politically. "The enemy prepared itself and wanted to bring down this government before it could accomplish its mission. Surely, that act has its own risks. We are expecting the world to help us fight these groups," he said. Commenting about the piracy menace in the high seas, Sharif said his government is not in the position to tackle at the moment. "Piracy, which is the other major problem, is caused by years of lawlessness in the country. So my government can not do anything about it,"

Sharif's remarks come as his Presidential Palace Villa Somalia comes under heavy mortar attack launched by Al-Shabaab fighters. Heavy exchange of gunfire and mortar shells has claimed the lives of at least four people while five others were wounded.

The Horn of African country is marred by years of civil strife that erupted after the ouster of the regime of President Mohamed Siad Bare in 1991.

Source: All Africa

Dozens killed in Mogadishu fighting

At least 50 people were killed and dozens more injured over the week in intense fighting between government troops and rebels in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, the United Nations said Tuesday.

If fighting were to continue at current intensity, Somalia's humanitarian situation could further deteriorate, said Elisabeth Byrs, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, noting that half of the country's population already needs aid. "Some 75% of the people in need are concentrated in south and central Somalia, where most of the fighting is taking place, causing loss of life and livelihoods and impeding humanitarian access," she said.

North Somalia, meanwhile, is beset by an "alarming deterioration" in the food and nutrition situation due to a drought. The International Committee of the Red Cross underlined the suffering of children in the country. "Somalia's children have never known what it is like to live in peace; armed violence has ravaged the country ever since they were born," said Ahmed Hassan, who heads the Somali Red Crescent. "Although they have adapted their short lives to the situation, they deserve all the support they can get."

The Horn of Africa country has been wracked by almost uninterrupted civil unrest since the 1991 ouster of President Mohamed Siad Barre. Hard-line Islamist rebels launched an offensive in early May to oust the internationally backed government of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

Source: mail & Guardian

Insurgents Claiming Victory in Somalia

Rebels in Somalia said on Saturday night that they had won control of the capital, Mogadishu, and had forced President Mohamed Siad Barre to flee his palace. The rebels' assertions, monitored over radio about 600 miles to the southwest in Nairobi, were largely confirmed today by a team of French doctors who were treating the wounded in the Somali capital.

Stevan van Praet, a representative in Kenya of a French humanitarian agency, Doctors Without Borders, said his team told him this morning by radio telephone that Mr. Siad Barre had fled the presidential palace in a tank 15 minutes before it was seized. Mr. van Praet said he had no information about the whereabouts of the President, who has held autocratic power in the eastern African nation for 21 years. Looting of Palace Mr. van Praet said his doctors had reported that civilians and rebels had looted the palace, known as Villa Somalia, after the President's escape.

One unconfirmed report in Nairobi said Mr. Siad Barre had fled to his well-fortified bunker at the Mogadishu airport, which the French doctors said was controlled by loyal troops. Another unconfirmed report suggested that the President had fled south toward the Kenyan border. In the broadcast, the United Somali Congress said: "The Government and the responsibility of the Somali people were taken over by the U.S.C. movement. We are addressing you from Radio Mogadishu, the voice of the Somali people."

The United Somali Congress is one of three clan-based insurgent groups that have been trying to oust Mr. Siad Barre, who during the cold war received weapons from the Soviet Union and then the United States. In the last two years, under pressure from Congress, Washington cut off military aid over human rights abuses by the Somali Government.

The French doctors, who are accompanied by an English ecologist and pilot, Murray Watson, are the only independent contact between Mogadishu and the outside world. Soon after intense fighting and looting started at the end of last month, all foreign embassies were evacuated. Two weeks ago, diplomats from Italy, the former colonial power in Somalia, were the last to leave. In a radio conversation this morning with the British Broadcasting Corporation, Mr. Watson graphically described the scene in the whitewashed, palm-fringed city on the Indian Ocean. "There are not so many bodies," on the street, Mr. Watson said, "because dogs have eaten most of them." "There are hands sticking up through the sand," he said in an apparent description of bodies still strewn on the beach. He said that in the last few days, the doctors had received about 60 severely wounded civilians and were performing "10 to 15 amputations a day." Mr. Watson told the BBC that shells fired from the area of the presidential palace were "going out 5 to 10 kilometers" and landing in civilian areas.

Last week, Mr. Siad Barre appointed a new Prime Minister, Umar Arteh Ghalib, a nationally known figure from the northern-based Isaaq clan, which has also been fighting the Government. The President also offered to step down if the rebels accepted a truce, but the deal was rejected. A stream of refugees has been pouring out of Somalia into both Ethiopia and Kenya, some of them highly placed military and political figures. With considerable rivalry between the clan-based insurgents, it seemed doubtful that the United Somali Congress would be able to restore stability to the country, both Somalis and Western analysts said. Many predicted that there would be persistent factional fighting.

Coveted by the superpowers during the cold war because of its strategic position on the Gulf of Aden and close to the Middle East, Somalia is a largely rural, Muslim country of six million people. The United States had an access agreement with the Siad Barre Government for use of the port at Berbera, but the internal situation had become so unstable that the port was not used during the build up for the Persian Gulf war.

Source: New York Times

3 SOMALI SOLDIERS SAID TO HIJACK A JET TO ETHIOPIA

A Somali jetliner carrying 130 people was hijacked Saturday by three armed Somali soldiers who beat the pilot and wounded a crew member in a midair shootout, Ethiopian officials said. After arriving at the airport here, the hijackers released 22 people, the Ethiopian press agency and Western diplomats said. Ethiopian officials said the hijackers threatened to blow up the plane unless Somali authorities released a number of political prisoners and canceled the execution of seven Somali youths who were convicted of anti-Government activities. The execution was scheduled for today.

Ethiopian officials said the hijackers, who seized the Boeing 707 on a flight from Mogadishu, the Somali capital, to Jidda, Saudi Arabia, had told them that they planned to blow up the plane at midnight Saturday. That deadline passed and the hijackers threatened early this morning to blow up the plane by noon if their demands were not met by then. One American on Board According to a senior Western diplomat, one American, whose identity was not known, was among the 118 passengers and 12 crew members on the plane when it was seized.

The official Mogadishu radio broadcast a statement early today saying that the Somali Government had discussed the issue with ''various embassies about this action of banditry and terrorism against the civilian passengers, since this terrorist action is in breach of international agreements covering civilians,'' The Associated Press said. It added that the statement did not say what the Somali Government would do about the hijackers' demands.

Pro-Western Somalia and pro-Soviet Ethiopia fought a war in 1977 over the disputed Ogaden region and relations between the two nations remain strained. Relief Pilots Hear Messages Pilots of Britain's Royal Air Force who were flying relief missions to Ethiopian famine victims learned of the hijacking Saturday morning when they picked up radio messages from the Somali plane. The Britons said they heard the pilot identify the hijackers as members of a Somali political resistance group. But the official Ethiopian press agency said the hijackers were three heavily armed Somali Army officers who had demanded that the execution of the seven youths in Somalia be called off and that international guarantees be given for the youths' safety. The agency said the hijackers were also demanding that a number of political prisoners in Somalia be released and sent to neighboring Djibouti, and that their arrival there be confirmed.

According to a British Broadcasting Corporation report, the hijackers freed 15 women and 4 children Saturday. Also freed, the BBC said, were three crew members - the wounded Somali crew member, who was assumed to have been a security guard, the injured captain, and the first officer, who was reported to have become ill. Food and other provisions were delivered to the passengers still on board Saturday. The Somali plane landed at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa after being refused permission to land in Aden, in Southern Yemen, the official Saudi press agency said.

Ethiopian officials negotiated with the hijackers throughout most of Saturday and early today. Late Saturday evening, spotlights illuminated the Somali aircraft, which was parked just off the main runway and was being guarded by armored vehicles. A delegation of eight United States Congressmen arrived at the airport here Saturday night as scheduled on a trip to assess famine relief efforts in various parts of the country.

Source: New York Times