The hardline Islamist group Al Shabaab, which is fighting the Somali government and its Ethiopian military backers, said it would stop planes from landing after midnight on Tuesday.
“We banned all planes from Mogadishu after confirming that American spies, the African Union, Ethiopians and the infidel government troops use the airport,” said a statement in Somali on www.kataaib.net, one of several sites used by the militants.
The sea-front airport in south Mogadishu is used for government and commercial flights. African Union (AU) peacekeepers and some visiting U.N. missions also fly there.
Aid groups tend to use other landing strips.
“We warn the Somali businessmen: Ethiopia gets revenue from Mogadishu airport. (AU mission) Amisom and Ethiopians also transport their injured and dead soldiers from this airport,” said the statement that appeared at the weekend.
The African Union has 2,200 peacekeepers in Somalia, mainly based at the airport. They have done little to stem violence and the pan-African body wants to hand over to the United Nations.
The airport has suffered a string of attacks since Islamists launched an Iraq-style insurgency in 2007. Several times, shells have hit about the time President Abdullahi Yusuf has taken off.
“The airport is not for Amisom but for the Somali people,” added AU spokesman Barigye Ba-Hoku. “It would hinder first of all the Somalis who need medicine, who need to leave when sick. So this threat means they don’t care for the Somali people.”
A local airline official, who asked not to be named, said he had received a warning from Al Shabaab.
The threat reflects the growing confidence of one of the main players in the Somali war. The group recently led an Islamist takeover of the southern port of Kismayu, giving it a strategic sea access and proximity to the Kenyan border.
Al Shabaab appears to have stepped up activities, and widened its sphere of targets, since being put on Washington’s terrorist list earlier this year.
Six killed in Mogadishu violence
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AFP) – At least six people, including an African Union peacekeeper, were killed Sunday in two separate incidents in the Somali capital, witnesses and officials said.
A convoy of the A.U. peacekeeping mission’s Ugandan contingent was hit by a roadside bomb explosion followed by gunfire near Mogadishu airport, an A.U. statement said.
“The attack that lasted for a very short time and was carried out by unknown elements using small arms from building tops… resulted in the death of one of our colleagues,” it said.
The statement added that two other peacekeepers were wounded and later flown back to Uganda for treatment.
In another incident, clashes erupted in Mogadishu’s Taleh neighborhood when Somali forces raided the neighborhood and encountered resistance from Islamist insurgents, witnesses told AFP.
Two soldiers were killed in the fighting and three civilians caught in the crossfire also died, they said.
“I saw the dead bodies of two Somali soldiers and three civilians in Taleh neighborhood,” local elder Mohamed Moalim Sugule said.
Ali Hasan, another witness, said two of the civilians died on the spot while another died on the way to hospital.
Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in 2006 to rescue the embattled western- backed transitional government and oust an Islamist militia that had briefly taken control of large parts of the country.
Islamist armed groups have since reverted to guerrilla tactics and are carrying out almost daily attacks against Ethiopian troops, Somali government forces and AU peacekeepers.
Civilians have borne the brunt of the violence. According to several international aid and rights groups, at least 6,000 of them have died over the past year alone.
