Deadly fighting rages in Somali capital as toll mounts

**troung** · 29 May 06,, 02:19

Deadly fighting rages in Somali capital as toll mounts

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MOGADISHU (AFP) - Deadly fighting has flared on in the lawless Somali capital Mogadishu as Islamic militia and gunmen loyal to a US-backed warlord alliance engaged for the seventh day in what residents described as the heaviest clashes.

At least eight people -- seven civilians and a militiaman -- were killed in the northern Mogadishu district of Sisi, bringing the death toll to at least 108 since fighting erupted in the war-shattered capital on Sunday, witnesses said.

In addition two overnight deaths, five more civilians were killed and 17 wounded in the volatile Sisi neighbourhood, where residents said the violence had escalated and displaced thousands of people.

"Today we have seen violence that we have never experienced in the past one week," resident Mohamed Jumale told AFP Saturday.

"Five people have been killed and many more are unaccounted for as a result of clashes that are going on," Jumale said. Witnesses said a militiaman was also killed.

They said sporadic gunfire was heard in across Huriwa, Waharaade and Yaqshid districts in north and south of the blood-soaked capital where the militia have also engaged in fighting.

The fighting has wounded more than 250 people, mostly civilians, straining hospitals here, medical sources said.

"The warring sides are not targeting civilians directly, but most people are killed by stray bullets, mortars or heavy machineguns coming into their shanty houses penetrating the poorly constructed walls," said Mohmamed Hirsi, an elderly man who fled from Sisi.

Accounts of the death toll have varied widely, but the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), which runs hospitals in the city with the Somali Red Crescent, estimated on Thursday that about 80 people had been killed.

A spokesman for the alliance, Hussein Gutale Raghe, said on Friday he believed the death toll stood at at least 150 and perhaps more but there was no way to independently verify the figures and families say many more people are still unaccounted for.

But long-time Mogadishu residents said militiamen usually bury their dead at night to avoid revealing their losses.

"Militiamen bury their dead overnight and it is difficult to know how many were killed during the darkness," said one resident, requesting to remain unnamed. "But civilian casualty is always visible."

At least 70 percent of the population in the worst affected districts are believed to have fled their homes under intense machine gun, rocket and mortar fire that has rained down on residential areas causing indiscriminate damage.

The death toll has now surpassed that from an earlier wave of unrest over three days in February and four days in March when at least 85 people were killed as the two factions fought each other.

Those incidents had been the bloodiest clashes in the capital since Somalia collapsed into anarchy 15 years ago.

The fighting has continued despite appeals for calm by the United Nations, United States and Somalia's largely powerless transitional government, currently based in the town of Baidoa, about 250 kilometres (155 kilometres) west of Mogadishu.

Their appeals and a truce offer from the Islamic clerics who control the militia have been dismissed by the warlord-led Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT).

"I am appealing and begging the warring sides in Mogadishu to show a sense of humanity and stop the war," influential Somali parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden told reporters in Nairobi.

The alliance has vowed to curb the power of the courts that have gained popular backing by restoring some stability to areas in Mogadishu they control through the imposition of Sharia law.

It also accuses the courts of harboring terrorists and training foreign fighters on Somali soil, charges that Islamic leaders deny but that are also leveled by the US and other Western nations.

Although Washington has not explicitly confirmed its support for the alliance, US officials have told AFP the group has received US money and is one of several it is working with to contain the threat of Islamic radicals.

05/13/2006 08:49

**smilingassassin** · 29 May 06,, 10:02

Geese this stuff is still going on there?!!

**troung** · 05 Jun 06,, 04:17

MOGADISHU: Militants seized a strategic town outside Mogadishu on Sunday, dislodging a member of the anti-terrorism warlord coalition in fierce fighting that left nine people dead, officials and residents said.

The town of Balad, 30 km (19 miles) north of Mogadishu, fell to the Islamic courts after two hours of intense battle.

"Balad is in our hands. The enemy has escaped from the town," said militia leader Moallim Hashi Mohamed, whose forces have been fighting those of warlord Muse Sudi Yalahow.

There was no immediate comment from Muse Sudi side, but witnesses reported seeing his forces heading toward Jowhar town.

Residents who emerged after the clash counted bodies.

"I saw seven bodies lying on the ground inside the town," said one resident. Another said he saw two bodies at a check point outside Balad.

The small town is strategic because it lies on the route connecting the capital to the fertile agriculture areas of Middle Shabelle and Lower Shabelle.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...6DAA977891.htm

Islamists take Somali town

Sunday 04 June 2006, 19:40 Makka Time, 16:40 GMT

At least 12 people have been reported killed as Islamist fighters seized a town north of Mogadishu in clashes with a secular alliance.

Heavily armed Islamist fighters fought their rivals from the so-called Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) before taking control of Balad township around 30km north of the Somali capital.

Medical workers saidthat the 12, mostly militiamen, who were killed in Balad and the nearby village of Basra, brought the death toll from clashes to 31 in four days.

Yusuf Hagaley, a medical worker in the town, said: "The counted dead bodies were found in the town and there were other [casualty] figures from small clinics."

Witnesses said ARPCT commanders fled to the town of Jowhar, about 60km to the north.

With control of Balad, the Islamists have weakened the warlords' allaince that has controlled the country since Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991.

Since the war erupted in February, at least 244 people have been killed and more than 1,500 injured, many of them civilians.

Somalia's largely powerless transitional government has blamed the alliance and the United States, which is believed to be backing it, for the current fighting, the bloodiest for 15 years.

**troung** · 05 Jun 06,, 20:18

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http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa....ap/index.html

Quote:

Taliban-like regime may be rising in Somalia
Islamic militants capture capital in Horn of Africa nation

Monday, June 5, 2006; Posted: 1:19 p.m. EDT (17:19 GMT)

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Islamic fundamentalists whose ideology is similar to the Taliban seized control of Somalia's capital Monday, unifying the city for the first time in more than a decade and posing a direct challenge to a fledging U.N.-backed government.

The advance against a secular alliance rumored to be backed by Washington comes after weeks of bloody fighting and 15 years of anarchy in the Horn of Africa nation, raising fears that Somalia could fall under the sway of al Qaeda.

"We won the fight against the enemy of Islam; Mogadishu is under control of its people," said Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, chairman of the Islamic Courts Union, on a radio broadcast. The militia now controls a 65-mile (100-kilometer) radius around the capital after fighting off a secular alliance of warlords.

The Islamic militia is gaining ground just as the U.N.-backed interim government struggles to assert control outside its base in Baidoa, 155 miles (249 kilometers) from Mogadishu. Weapons prices soared there Monday amid fears that the militia could head next to Baidoa.

The militia is the first group to consolidate control over all of Mogadishu's neighborhoods since the last government collapsed in 1991 and warlords took over, dividing the impoverished country of 8 million into a patchwork of rival fiefdoms.

Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, said the Islamic militia's victory in Mogadishu was a major turning point in the country's history.

"It is exactly the same thing that happened with the rise to power of the Taliban," he said, adding that the extremists are "using the people's weariness of violence, rape and civil war" to gain support for a government based on Islamic law.

The battle between the militia and the secular alliance has been intensifying in recent months, with more than 300 people killed and 1,700 wounded -- many of them civilians caught in the crossfire of grenades, machine guns and mortars.

Alliance leaders could not be reached for comment Monday and had likely fled Mogadishu. One of them, warlord Mohamed Dheere, was believed to be in Ethiopia seeking reinforcements.

The United States is widely believed to be backing the secular alliance in an attempt to root out any al Qaeda members operating in the Horn of Africa, but American officials have declined to comment. The United States has not carried out any direct action in Somalia since the deaths of 18 servicemen in a 1993 battle depicted in the film "Black Hawk Down."

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said recently that three al Qaeda leaders indicted in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania are being sheltered by Islamic leaders in Mogadishu.

The same al Qaeda cell is believed responsible for the 2002 suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya that killed 15 people and a simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner.

The Islamic militants and their secular rivals began competing for influence in earnest after a U.N.-backed interim government slowly began to gain international recognition. The weak government, wracked by infighting, has not been able to enter the capital because of the violence.

Interim Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi recently fired four ministers who were part of the secular alliance, leaving the alliance without any support in the government.

Mogadishu residents expressed relief at Monday's relative peace, but they had mixed responses to the Islamic militia's advance.

"The victory of Islamic Courts is a major step toward a lasting peaceful settlement in Mogadishu," said Somali economist Abdinasir Ahmed. "We are tired of the deception and rhetoric of the warlords."

Computer engineer Abdulqaadir Bashir disagreed. "The Islamic clerics want to be like the Taliban regime in Afghanistan," he said. "People have no hope at all."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.