MOGADISHU (Reuters) –
Battles between rival Islamist groups in central Somalia have killed 123 people, a rights group said on Saturday, and a pro-government militia said militant rebel leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys had died in the fighting.
Aweys’ militia denied that as propaganda.
Witnesses said scores of bodies lay in the streets of Wabho town after fighters from the hardline al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam groups battled moderate Islamist group Ahla Sunna Waljamaca for control. Most of the deaths were on Friday.
The local Elman Peace and Human Rights Organization said it had confirmed 123 fighters killed in one of the worst flare-ups of the year in the conflict-riven Horn of Africa nation.
An Islamist insurgency that broke out in early 2007 — the latest in 19 years of conflict in Somalia — has killed around 18,000 civilians and thousands more fighters.
It has also drawn foreign jihadists into Somalia, enabled piracy to flourish offshore, and unsettled the whole region, putting East African neighbors on high security alert.
In Mogadishu, al Shabaab have been battling the security forces of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed. In the central region, pro- and anti-government Islamist militia have been fighting all year, with towns changing hands regularly.
DEAD OR ALIVE?
Meanwhile, a Somali Islamist rebel leader on U.S. and U.N. terrorism lists denied on Monday reports that he had been seriously wounded in fighting between rival Islamist groups in the Horn of Africa nation.
“You see that I am physically healthy and fit. No injuries at all. That is propaganda spread by the enemy when they were defeated in the recent fighting in central Somalia,” Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys told Reuters in Mogadishu.
A family member and a militia opposed to Aweys and his Islamist insurgent group Hizbul Islam said on Sunday the rebel leader he had been seriously wounded, or killed.
Aweys, who Western security services say is close to al Qaeda, is a father figure to the insurgents in Somalia, where he has headed various Islamist groups since the 1990s.
An Islamist insurgency since early 2007, the latest cycle in 19 years of conflict in the Horn of Africa nation, has killed around 18,000 civilians and thousands more fighters.
It has also drawn foreign jihadists into Somalia, enabled piracy to flourish offshore and unsettled the whole of East Africa, with neighbors Kenya and Ethiopia on high alert.
The government-allied moderate Islamist militia Ahla Sunna Waljamaca said its fighters shot Aweys during battles in Wabho town on Friday, and that he died of wounds later.
There were also rumors among militia fighters that another rebel leader, Sheikh Hassan Abdullah Hersi al-Turki, was among the 123 combatants who died in the fighting around Wabho.
