• African Union calls for sanctions on Eritrea, no-fly zone
• Rebel reinforcements expected in capital
• At least 45 people killed on Friday in heavy clashes
MOGADISHU, May 23 (Reuters) – Government forces fought hardline Islamist insurgents on Saturday in Somalia’s capital for a second day running to try to regain control of the city.
Heavy fighting killed at least 45 people, more than half of them civilians, and wounded nearly 200 on Friday in one of the bloodiest days of combat in Mogadishu in months.
Neighbouring states and Western governments fear Somalia, which has been mired in civil war for 18 years, could become a haven for militants linked to al Qaeda unless the new government under President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed can defeat them.
Residents said there was sporadic gunfire on Saturday but feared the fighting would intensify after reports of rebel reinforcements coming to confront a government offensive.
Islamist insurgents took up arms in 2007 to drive out Ethiopian troops propping up a Western-backed government which failed to wield control much of the Horn of Africa nation.
The Ethiopians withdrew at the start of 2009 and an Islamist president was elected in neighbouring Djibouti in January. But the insurgents have intensified attacks against the new administration and African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu.
Somalia’s government has accused Eritrea of supporting al Shabaab insurgents with planeloads of AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons.
SANCTIONS, NO-FLY ZONE
The African Union stepped up pressure on the Horn of Africa nation late on Friday by calling for U.N. Security Council sanctions, a no fly-zone and sea blockade.
“(The United Nations Security Council should) impose sanctions against all those foreign actors, both within and outside the region, especially Eritrea, providing support to the armed groups,” the 53-member body said in a statement.
Eritrea’s president denies the charge and blames American agents for spreading lies to blacken his government’s name.
Since the start of 2007, fighting has killed at least 17,700 civilians and driven more than 1 million from their homes. About 3 million Somalis survive on emergency food aid.
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR says 49,000 people have fled fighting in Mogadishu in the past two weeks.
Al Shabaab, which Washington says has close ties to al Qaeda, and Islamist guerrilla group Hizbul Islam have been spearheading attacks on the government, allied militia and African Union peacekeepers.
Until Friday, pro-government forces had not looked strong enough to break Shabaab’s grip on parts of Mogadishu.
But last week’s defection of a veteran warlord with hundreds of fighters under his command may have prompted Ahmed to order the new offensive.
Defence Minister Mohamed Abdi Gandi said on Friday the fighting would go on until the insurgents were beaten.
Experts say pro-government forces will be hard-pushed to extend their reach to distant provinces, increasing the risk of protracted fighting in a country that has known little but violence and anarchy since a dictator was ousted in 1991.
An important figure in any reconciliation would be hardline opposition leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who ran Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia alongside Ahmed in late 2006.
The two Islamists — Aweys was always considered the more hardline — split after Ahmed joined the peace process.
“Somalia has no government we recognise,” Aweys told Reuters in an interview on Friday. [ID:nLM978588] “We should not be deceived by Westerners like Sharif.”
“We shall defeat the government soon, God willing.” (Writing by David Clarke; Editing by Richard Williams)
MOGADISHU, Somalia (May 22) – Hundreds of government soldiers attacked Islamic insurgents across the Somali capital amid heavy artillery shelling Friday, battling along streets strewn with bodies as they tried to regain lost ground.
The UN-backed government, which held just a few blocks of Mogadishu before the fighting erupted early in the day, claimed it had taken rebel-controlled areas, but the insurgents said they repelled the attacks.
One Somali reported a busload of fleeing civilians was hit by gunfire, and others told of seeing many casualties. At least 22 people were dead and more than 150 wounded across the city, residents, medical officials and an independent radio station said.
“We are running out of beds … we cannot cope,” said Ali Adde, deputy director of the Medina Hospital, where more than 100 casualties were brought.
Some of the patients were being treated outside in hastily erected tents after the hospital ran out of room, he said.
The government offensive followed a few days’ lull after Islamic insurgents staged a major attack in Mogadishu. Despite successes, the insurgents failed to gain control of key installations like the airport and presidential palace, which are guarded by African Union peacekeepers.
The Islamic fighters also had been expanding their hold on territory in central Somalia taken from clan militias allied to the government.
But the militants halted when neighbouring Ethiopia moved several columns of troops over the border to secure key towns. Ethiopia, which helped government troops drive Islamic militiamen out of the capital late in 2006, worries about the insurgents’ links to rebel groups on its own soil.
Regional leaders issued a hurried statement Friday in support of the beleaguered UN-backed government, which took advantage of the calm in recent days to resupply and regroup its troops before launching Friday’s assault.
Both sides fired mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and missiles mounted on trucks into residential areas. Gunmen with belts of ammunition wound around their skinny chests crouched behind shell-pocked buildings, ignoring bodies in the streets.
A man cradled a wounded child, blood streaming from its face onto his white shirt while two more hurriedly trundled a body down the road on a cart, a scarf draped over its head. Another man stared vacantly, his lower jaw torn away by shrapnel or a bullet.
“The gunfire is pounding our village like thunder. This is a nightmare,” said Mohamed Haji Tohow from southern Mogadishu. “May God save us.”
Among the dead was journalist Abdirisaq Warsame Mohamed of the independent radio station Shabelle Media Network. His editor said he was hit by a stray bullet on his way to work.
The UN said some 49,000 people had fled the capital, and the humanitarian situation was dire. Many families camped out under trees or by the side of roads, sheltered by nothing more than a few scraps of plastic, without access to food or water.
Mark Schroeder, an analyst at Stratfor, an international intelligence company, said he did not expect Somalia’s fighting to end soon.
Two insurgent groups have cobbled together an alliance seeking to overthrow the weak government and its allied militias. But Schroeder said even if that occurred the nationalist aims of the leader of the Islamic party and the jihadist ideology of the al-Shabab militia would likely lead to conflict between the nominal allies.
“The Islamists can be united as long as they have a common enemy,” he said.
In addition, Ethiopia and the United States are keen to prevent Islamic forces from coming into power in Somalia, Schroeder said. They are particularly opposed to the al-Shabab militia, which has publicly stated its support for al-Qaida and received endorsement from Osama bin Laden in a video.
“The fight is far from over,” Schroeder said.
He noted Somalia’s new president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, has a personal rivalry with Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, an Islamist leader who arrived in Mogadishu a month ago after two years of exile in Eritrea.
Ahmed and Aweys, who come from the same clan, once fought alongside each other against the previous administration and its Ethiopian allies. But Ahmed signed a peace deal, clearing the way for him to become president, and Aweys now regards him as a traitor.
There is also a rivalry between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which is supporting Aweys. Eritrea, which broke away from Ethiopia after a long, bitter war, is eager to weaken its archenemy any way it can.
Somalis have not known peace for a generation, ever since warlords overthrew a socialist dictator in 1991. Clan militias turned on each other seeking revenge for brutality of his rule, and in the intervening years criminal militias and pirates have built business empires out of the chaos.
