MOGADISHU, Somalia – The 11-person crew of a cargo plane that was shot down by a missile during takeoff died, officials said Saturday.
The downing of the plane, which on Friday delivered equipment for Ugandan peacekeepers in Mogadishu, came at the end of a particularly violent week in the Somali capital. Dozens of people, most of them civilians, were killed in fighting.
Ten of the crew died in Friday’s crash. Rescuers found a wounded crew member and took him to a Mogadishu hospital where he died while being treated, said Hussein Mohamed Mohamud, spokesman for Somalia’s president.
All crew members were either Ukrainian or Belarussian, Mohamud said on Saturday, adding that their bodies will be flown back to their countries later in the day.
On Friday, Egi Azarian, acting head of Belarus-based Transaviaexport, confirmed that the company’s plane was shot down but would not give any details.
An airport worker, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, saw the attack on the Russian-built plane.
Another witness said he saw one of the plane’s wings fall into the Indian Ocean.
“Nobody knows what exactly has caused the crash. There are controversial stories coming from eyewitnesses and we are investigating,” Mohamud told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Mogadishu International Airport Manager Mohmed Ahmed Siyaad said that before the plane crashed, the captain contacted the control tower and said one of the engines caught fire.
Transaviaexport, based in Minsk, Belarus, operates only Ilyushin-76s, one of the largest cargo planes in the world. The aircraft requires a crew of six, is about 155 feet long and can carry 99,200 pounds of cargo.
Capt. Paddy Ankunda, spokesman for the Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia, said the plane had brought crew to work on another plane that was hit by a mechanical failure earlier this month.
Another plane had made an emergency landing March 9. An Islamic group claimed it had hit that plane with a missile, but Somali and peacekeeping officials said it was likely a mechanical failure that led to the emergency landing.
Four days later, a Belarus official confirmed the plane had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Daily violence in the capital has hit civilians the hardest.
A truce between Ethiopian military officials who had come to bolster the government and elders of Mogadishu’s dominant clan, the Hawiye, took effect Friday and much of the violence halted.
Mogadishu remained calm Saturday.
Government officials have said their offensive this week was focused on parts of the capital controlled by the Habr Gedir clan, a branch of the larger Hawiye clan.
The Habr Gedir clan is a major supporter of the more radical elements of Islamic courts that controlled the capital and southern Somalia for six months before Somali government troops, backed by Ethiopian forces, ousted them in December.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991. The current administration has failed to assert control throughout the country, and the African Union deployed the small force of Ugandans to defend it.
Residents flee Mogadishu as battle rages
MOGADISHU – Somali and Ethiopian troops battled insurgents for a second day in the capital Thursday, witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of causalities.
On Wednesday, Islamic insurgents dragged soldiers’ bodies through the streets of Mogadishu during the fighting. At least 21 people were killed in Wednesday’s violence and more than 120 were wounded, hospital officials said.
Insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and heavy machine-guns and government troops responded with artillery and machine-gun fire in the early morning battles Thursday in……northern and southern parts of Mogadishu, the witnesses said.
Hundreds of government troops were deployed to reinforce troops who fought insurgents Wednesday, said Fathi Mohamed Aden, a clan elder who saw the fighting take place in his northern Mogadishu neighborhood.
Both sides then engaged in a fierce gunbattle, he said.
In a southern Mogadishu neighborhood, gunmen attacked government and Ethiopian troops based at the former defense ministry building, said Jamila Isaq Roble, a mother of six.
The fighting follows Wednesday’s battles during which insurgents dragged the bodies of six soldiers _ four Somalis and two of their Ethiopianallies _ through the streets of Mogadishu and set the bodies on fire, drawing crowds who threw rocks and kicked the smoldering remains.
Wednesday marked some of the heaviest fighting in Mogadishu since a radical militia known as the Council of Islamic Courts was driven from the capital in December after six months in power. But the group has promised to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war, and mortar attacks pound the capital nearly every day.
The leader of the Council of Islamic Courts, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, told the British Broadcasting Corp.’s Somali service that the insurgents and residents of Mogadishu are justified in fighting the Somaligovernment troops and their Ethiopian allies, but denied he was involved in it.
Speaking in a rare interview late Wednesday since his group’s ouster, Aweys said he and other Islamic leaders are safe and living in Somalia, though he declined to disclose his location. He said that he considers African Union peacekeepers already in the country enemies.
“We were invaded and no one respected us while we were in power and were ready to negotiate. Even the United Nations, which we expected was an impartial organization, helped the invasion against us. So we see the African troops as an enemy and not a friend,” Aweys said, speaking on a satellite phone.
Interior Minister Mohamed Mohamud Guled said that the government is determined to restore law and order in Mogadishu within a week despite any resistance it meets.
“The government will defeat the elements, who are the enemy of peace for Somalis and we will conclude that mission within a week,” Guled told The Associated Press.
A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing operation, said Wednesday’s offensive was focused on parts of the capital controlled by the Habr Gedir clan, which was a major supporter of the more radical elements of the Islamic courts and remains opposed to the government.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991. The current administration has failed to assert control throughout the country, and the African Union has deployed a small peacekeeping force to defend it.
But daily violence has continued in the capital, with civilians caught in the crossfire taking the brunt of the violence.
MOGADISHU, Somalia – Masked men believed to be Islamic militants dragged the corpses of two soldiers through the streets of the Somali capital and set their bodies on fire Wednesday during fierce battles with government forces trying to consolidate their control of Mogadishu.
Medical officials at Mogadishu’s three hospitals said they had recorded at least seven dead and 36 wounded by early afternoon in some of the heaviest fighting in Mogadishu since the Islamic forces were driven out in December. Dahir Mohamed Mohamud Dhere of Medina Hospital said doctors there were treating 36 wounded government soldiers.
An Associated Press photographer saw insurgents drag the bodies of one Ethiopian soldier and one Somali government soldier through southern Mogadishu and set them on fire.
The men dragging the corpses wore blue and white scarves to mask their faces, something characteristic of Mogadishu’s insurgents, who normally carry out their attacks with their faces masked.
Women pounded one of the burning bodies with stones as a handful of young men watched.
A similar scene grabbed the world’s attention after Somali militiamen shot down a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter in 1993 during a failed American mission to capture a warlord. The images of American troops being dragged through the streets led to the eventual withdrawal of U.N. forces and years of anarchy in Somalia.
Dahir Mohamed Mohamud Dhere of Medina Hospital said that his institution was treating 36 wounded government soldiers.
Ahmed Mohamed Botaan, a clan elder whose neighborhood was turned into a battleground, told the AP by phone that he counted 15 bodies, seven of government troops.
Ethiopia sent soldiers into Somalia in December to help defeat an Islamic movement that threatened to destroy the internationally recognized government. The defeated Islamic forces started an insurgency to overthrow the government and drive out the Ethiopian troops, firing mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at the Somali forces and their Ethiopian allies almost daily.
Somali leaders have said in recent weeks that they were preparing a major offensive to stop the growing insurgency.
Somali and Ethiopian forces supported by tanks and armored vehicles entered an insurgent stronghold in southern Mogadishu before dawn and were met by hundreds of masked insurgents.
“Ethiopian tanks rolled out of the former Defense Ministry and moved into the nearby Shirkole area, which is seen as the stronghold of the insurgent groups, and they met with stiff resistance,” said Ali Haji Jama, a resident of the southern neighborhood at the center of the fighting.
Other witnesses said minibuses filled with insurgents were racing through the city to reach Shirkole and defend against the Ethiopian advance. The same minibuses were used to carry away casualties, said Muqtar Abdulahi Dahir, a Mogadishu businessman who witnessed the fighting.
Somalia’s government began the operation about midnight Tuesday at the former Defense Ministry headquarters and plans to move forces into other parts of the capital, said Mohamed Ali Nur, Somalia’s ambassador in neighboring Kenya.
Nur said that the government push was aimed at stopping insurgents attacking government buildings. He denied that any Ethiopian troops were involved in the operation.
A group of insurgents, Popular Resistance Movement in the Land of the Two Migrations, claimed they were the target of the government offensive, which has also been reported in northern parts of the capital.
The group said in a statement posted on the Web site of Somalia’s routed Islamic movement that it had repulsed the attacks and an unspecified number of government soldiers had surrendered.
The group said that it expected “decisive” fighting in coming days.
Security officials arrested two journalists working for local Shabelle Radio when they went to Mogadishu’s main airport to attend a news conference with Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, said Mohamed Amin, the station’s editor.
Amin told the AP that he did not know where they were taken or why, adding that other journalists who went to the venue were threatened. Some fled when their two colleagues were arrested, he said.
Salah Abdikadir, a senior intelligence officer, confirmed that security officials had picked up the journalists but declined to give any details.
The African Union has deployed a small peacekeeping force to defend the current government.
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Associated Press Writer Mohamed Sheikh Nor in Mogadishu and Malkhadir M. Muhumed in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report.
NAIROBI, Kenya — In some of the bloodiest fighting in months, at least 20 people were killed Wednesday in Somalia’s capital. The dead included seven government soldiers, some of whose bodies were dragged through the streets and set on fire, witnesses said.
The gruesome scene was reminiscent of the 1993 crash of a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter in Mogadishu during an ill-fated mission that left 18 American servicemen dead.
The latest clashes began after government soldiers, aided by Ethiopian troops, launched an early-morning raid on the town’s outskirts. They encountered stiff resistance from gunmen believed to be remnants of the Islamic Courts Union.
The Islamic alliance, accused by U.S. officials of having links to Al Qaeda, was driven out of Mogadishu in December. However, some of its fighters have moved underground and are now attempting to launch an insurgency against the government. They are calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops.
Though U.S. and United Nations officials hoped the brief Ethiopian-led war against the Islamists would restore peace and security to Somalia after 16 years of clan war and anarchy, the Horn of Africa nation appears to be slipping back into chaos.
Amid near-daily mortar attacks and shootouts, Mogadishu residents complain that the violence is the worst it has been in years despite the presence of Ethiopian and Africa Union troops assisting Somalia’s weak transitional government.
Tens of thousands of Somalis have fled the country in recent months, according to refugee groups. Last month, bandits hijacked a World Food Program ship delivering rations.
“At least we had peace during the time of the Islamic Courts Union,” said Halima Abdi, a single mother of six. “If the government and Ethiopian troops are not going to keep the security, they should leave.”
Hospital officials said they were treating dozens of civilians injured in Wednesday’s fight.
“We have already received 55 wounded people of different ages, including children and old people,” said Dahir Mohamoud Mohammed, director of Madina Hospital in Mogadishu.
Local journalists and photographers reported seeing at least two uniformed bodies being dragged by rope, stoned and then set on fire.
Shabelle Media Network, a Somalian news agency, on Wednesday posted pictures it said depicted the bodies of Ethiopian and Somalian government soldiers being dragged by angry mobs.
Ethiopian officials denied that any of their soldiers were among those pulled through the streets. “That is categorically false,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Solomon Abede told Reuters news agency.
Michael E. Ranneberger, U.S. ambassador to Kenya, condemned the desecration of the soldiers’ bodies as “horrendous” but insisted that Somalia was making progress.
“We do feel on the balance that the situation in Somalia is moving forward in a generally positive way,” said Ranneberger, who also oversees U.S. affairs in Somalia.
He said the arrival of Ugandan peacekeepers, the first of an African Union force expected to eventually total 8,000, should help government forces maintain security and disarm militants. A reconciliation conference aimed at soothing Somalia’s long-standing clan rivalries also is being planned.
Ranneberger blamed recent anti-government violence on several groups, including former Islamist fighters, warlords attempting to regain control and criminal gangs. “It’s a bit of an insecurity soup,” he said.
He accused Al Qaeda operatives of fueling some of the chaos. “To the extent that [the Islamic Courts Union is] seeking to reorganize, there undoubtedly is Al Qaeda encouragement for that and support for that.”
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Special correspondent Lutfi Sheriff Mohammed in Mogadishu contributed to this report.
