Somalia clashes kill 15 civilians

July 3, 2009

MOGADISHU (AFP) –

Heavy clashes between Somali government troops and hardline militia in the war-torn capital Mogadishu killed at least 15 civilians Friday, witnesses said.

The government troops launched an offensive to dislodge the Shebab and other hardline fighters from positions in Mogadishu's Karan district which they had seized in recent battles.

"I have seen the bodies of six people who were killed by stray bullets. Three of them are from the same family," Ahmed Abdi Mumin, an elder in Karan, told AFP.

Another resident, Hassan Abdullahi, said four people were killed at a former navy barracks in the district.

Five others, including a child also died in the clashes, according to residents.

"We will bury them today even without being identified," said Moalim Hassan Alas.

The Shebab and Hezb al-Islam, a more political group, launched an unprecedented nationwide offensive in May against the administration of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

The internationally backed Sharif has been holed up in his presidential quarters, protected by African Union peacekeepers as his forces were unable to reassert their authority over the capital.

Around 300 people are confirmed to have been killed in the latest violence, many of them

Rebels: US arms to Somalia will increase violence

Mon Jun 29, 2009, 6:31 am ET

MOGADISHU, Somalia –

A Somali insurgent group says weapons and ammunition the United States recently supplied to Somalia's embattled government will only increase violence in the war-wracked country.

Shaik Hassan Ya'qub, a spokesman for the militant group al-Shabab in the port town of Kismayo, was responding to an announcement by U.S. officials last week that the Obama administration had supplied arms and provided military training worth just under $10 million to the shaky official government.

"The weapons sent to the so-called government will only escalate violence in Somalia and we, the holy warriors, believe that we will eventually seize them," said Ya'qub.

Over the past two months, President Shaikh Sharif Shaikh Ahmed's government has been come under heavy on-off attacks from insurgents pounding government positions with mortars and targeting senior officials in suicide attacks. During an intense two-week period of fighting in the capital in May about 200 civilians were killed.

It is unclear how al-Shabab group fighting to overthrow the government, will follow through on its threat to seize the arms. U.S. officials said last week the arms were supplied through the African Union force in the Somali capital, which has firm control of Mogadishu's main air and sea port even though Al-Shabab controls other parts of Mogadishu.

The U.S. considers al-Shabab a terrorist group with links to al-Qaida, which al-Shabab denies. The group, which controls much of southern Somalia, is trying to drive out the government and install a strict form of Islam.

In May, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development — a group of seven countries in the Horn of Africa region that has led past peace talks on Somalia — imposed a sea and air blockade to stop military supplies reaching the Islamic insurgents in Somalia. It is not clear whether the blockade is effective.

There has been a U.N. arms embargo on Somalia since 1992, but it is regularly violated. The U.N. amended the embargo in 2006 to allow the deployment of an African Union force in Somalia without violating international law.

Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991 when the overthrow of a dictatorship plunged the country into chaos.

AU summit tackles conflicts, 'African government'

by Griffin Shea Griffin Shea – Wed Jul 1, 2009, 11:03 pm ET

SIRTE, Libya (AFP) –

African leaders hold talks Thursday on Somalia and a slate of other conflicts at a continental summit hosted by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, who is lobbying for a powerful pan-African government.

The opening of the summit Wednesday was eclipsed by Kadhafi's invitation to Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address the gathering, only for Tehran to cancel the trip at the last minute without explanation.

His cancellation soothed nerves at the summit, where delegates said Kadhafi had not consulted members before offering Ahmadinejad an international platform -- despite protests over alleged fraud in his re-election and Iran's detention of British embassy staff.

Once the dust settled, the leaders held closed-door talks late into the night Wednesday on the summit's official agenda of boosting investment in agriculture across the continent.

Leaders from about half of the African Union's 53 members were at the summit, with Egypt and top oil producers Nigeria and Angola among the most notable absences.

The talks Thursday were set to turn to the political and armed conflicts roiling the continent, notably in Somalia, where the African Union has deployed 4,300 peacekeepers.

Islamist insurgents launched a new offensive against Somalia's internationally backed government in early May. The peacekeepers now spend most of their time protecting the president and ensuring that key sea and airports remain open.

"The worst case in Somalia would be a return to a stateless situation and incessant fratricidal attacks," the top AU official Jean Ping told the summit Wednesday.

"This is also a Somalia in a geo-strategic position heightened by its vulnerability, that could be transformed into an enduring point of support for international terrorism and maritime piracy," Ping added.

Somalia and five of its neighbours are asking the AU to send another 4,000 peacekeepers. Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Malawi are seen as candidates for offering troops, but it remains unclear if the African Union has the appetite to expand its operations as the violence intensifies.

The summit has already taken steps to address other hotspots.

The AU Peace and Security Council on Tuesday lifted Mauritania's suspension from the bloc, after the naming of a transitional government to steer the country toward elections on July 18, following last year's coup.

In Madagascar, new talks were planned for later this month to resolve the crisis after the elected president Marc Ravalomanana was ousted in March by opposition leader Andry Rajoelina, who took power with the army's blessing.

The summit also must decide how to react to the international war crimes warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir over atrocities in Darfur. Beshir has been travelling to countries without treaty obligations to the International Criminal Court to rally support for a suspension of the warrant.

But Kadhafi, the current head of the African Union, has been lobbying hard to push African nations to accept his vision for a greatly empowered AU executive, despite opposition from key countries like South Africa, the region's economic powerhouse.

Kadhafi wants to bring all the African Union's existing organs under a single federal authority, part of his broader campaign for a "United States of Africa".

Many countries, especially in eastern and southern Africa, favour a more gradual approach to integration and resent Kadhafi's pressure to quickly create a more powerful AU Authority.