MOGADISHU (AFP) – Somalia’s Islamist rebels vowed all-out war and rallied support after weekly prayers Friday to meet a nationwide offensive planned by the conflict-wracked country’s shaky government against insurgent groups.
Fighting which has rocked the capital almost daily for months broke out again, leaving five civilians dead and 20 wounded in an exchange of fire between members of the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab movement and government troops, officials said.
As thousands of residents have streamed out of the capital in recent days, rebel fighters have poured in to face newly-trained government forces backed by African Union troops ahead of the battle.
At the Nasreddin mosque in southern Mogadishu, Sheikh Muktar Robow Abu Mansur, a top military leader with the Shebab, said his movement was ready to face an onslaught by the Western-backed government.
“You are aware of the recent indiscriminate shelling of the enemy against our people. This war is a religious obligation for all of us to go and fight them,” Robow told the crowd after prayers.
“The soldiers of Allah are now fully prepared to launch attacks to eliminate the enemy from the country,” he said.
The Shebab control around 80 percent of southern and central Somalia, and since his election a year ago President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and his administration have been pinned down in a small area of the capital.
“Our promise is to engage in all-out war against them. Are you going to be with us?,” he shouted, rousing the crowd of faithful who roared back with a resounding “Yes”.
Robow, whose group last month officially declared it was a component of Al-Qaeda’s global network, told his audience their struggle was not simply to remove Sharif from power.
“All the mujahedeen in the country are ready to unite for this battle. This war does not only concern our country but the holy warriors will also assist our brothers fighting in Yemen, Afghanistan and Chechnya,” he said.
Hundreds of people in the city of Baidoa, west of Mogadishu, also gathered after prayers in the stadium, chanting “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) and listening to speeches urging war against the government and its allies.
“Today we are here to show our determination in the current situation. The enemies of Allah have allied to fight but we are also united against them,” Shebab official Sheikh Ibrahim Ali told AFP.
In Elashabiyaha, a village overflowing with displaced people near Mogadishu, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, whose Hezb al-Islam movement is allied to the Shebab, also held a rally.
While the guessing game continued on the date of the great offensive’s launch, tension mounted in Mogadishu as combatants on both sides took up their positions and the city centre continued to bleed its civilian population.
“The Shebab militants and their allies fired on our forces near Florenza, in Bondhere district, and in the Shibis area this morning,” Colonel Mohamed Ali, a senior government security officer, said.
“It was a kind of provocation but our forces defended their positions, responding with heavy machine-guns and anti-aircraft weapons,” he said, adding that two of his men were wounded.
Ali Muse, the head of Mogadishu’s ambulance services said the government troops’ retaliatory fire killed civilians in residential areas.
“The crossfire and stray mortars hit civilian-populated areas in northern Mogadishu and our ambulance teams have collected five bodies and 20 other injured civilians,” Muse told AFP.
In Geneva, Melissa Fleming of the UN refugee agency said, “Since the beginning of February, over 8,000 people have left the city to escape the fighting that is said to be raging in several areas.”
“We are stepping up our preparedness to intervene and deliver emergency relief to the affected population as soon as the security situation permits,” she said, but added, “As with other humanitarian actors, our own access is affected by the conflict.”
President Sharif, a young Islamist cleric who fought the Ethiopian invasion, was described by Washington and others as Somalia’s best hope for peace in years when he was elected a year ago.
But he failed to bring hardline Islamists back into the fold, and international military and financial support was initially sluggish.
Observers say the offensive, likely to be the largest military operation in Somalia in three years, is a make or break endeavour for Sharif’s administration, which has been unable to assert its authority on the country.
Somali minister dies of wounds after suicide bomb
By Abdi Guled, February 13, 2010
MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somalia’s sports minister has died in hospital in Saudi Arabia weeks after he was critically wounded in a suicide bombing at a medical graduation ceremony in Mogadishu, relatives and officials said on Saturday.
Saleban Olad Roble passed away on Friday at a hospital in the Saudi capital Riyadh, where he and other victims of the Dec. 3 blast at the Shamo Hotel had been flown for treatment.
Twenty-two people were killed, including three other government ministers — education, higher education and health — and 10 members of Benadir University’s faculty and students.
“We are arranging a state funeral,” Mohamed Ali Nur, Somalia’s ambassador to neighbouring Kenya, told Reuters. “We are still not sure whether his body will be carried back from Saudi Arabia. Our condolences go to his family and colleagues.”
December’s bombing demonstrated once again the rebels’ ability to strike the government at will, and stoked frustration in the country’s fragile administration over delayed pledges of military support and cash from Western donors.
The attack was carried out by a 26-year-old Danish man of Somali descent disguised as a veiled woman, and it was blamed on al Shabaab insurgents who profess loyalty to al Qaeda.
The European Union, Arab League, United States and others jointly denounced what they called a particularly “cold-blooded” attack on “young, enterprising Somalis (who) were marking what should have been a landmark occurrence in their young lives.”
It was the worst strike by Somali militants since last June, when an al Shabaab suicide bomber killed the security minister and at least 30 other people at a hotel in Baladwayne town.
Western security experts say the failed Horn of Africa state has become a safe haven for hardliners, including foreign jihadists, who are using it to plot attacks across the region and beyond.
The country has had no effective central government for 19 years and the U.N.-backed administration of President Sheikh Ahmed Sharif controls just a few blocks of the capital. Fighting has killed at least 21,000 people since the start of 2007.
For weeks, the government has been promising to launch an offensive against al Shabaab and another rebel group, Hizbul Islam, which both want to impose a harsh version of sharia law.
(Additional reporting by Sahra Abdi in Nairobi; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
