MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somali gunmen fired at a convoy of Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu in the latest of a string of attacks against the forces that helped the government oust Islamists, a Somali government source said on Monday.
The attack happened late on Sunday in the northern Arafat area, where hours before Ethiopian soldiers helped government troops seize guns and explosives in a push to restore order after defeating Islamists in a lightning December offensive.
“An Ethiopian convoy was hit near Arafat hospital … Two Ethiopian trucks were hit,” the source said. “Thirty minutes of heavy fighting followed. There are deaths on both sides,” the source added, saying three Somalis were killed in the shootout.
It was not clear who carried out the attack, though suspicion will fall on Islamist remnants. Militia loyal to Somali warlords have also started coming back to Mogadishu since the Islamists fled the capital late last month.
Somali gunmen have fired at Ethiopian soldiers several times this month. In scenes reminiscent of the lawlessness associated with Mogadishu, which largely stopped during six months of strict Islamist rule, crowds hurled stones and burned tires last week to demonstrate against the forces.
Ethiopia wants to withdraw its soldiers in the coming weeks but diplomats fear that would leave the government vulnerable to remnants of the Islamists vowing guerrilla war. Somalia’s stability is also under threat from warlords seeking to re-create their fiefdoms and competing clans.
The government is seeking to install itself in Mogadishu — one of the world’s most dangerous cities — and faces a huge challenge to bring peace and security to a nation, without effective central rule since the 1991 ouster of a dictator.
It is seeking to disarm residents of a city awash with guns and on Saturday Somalia’s parliament declared a three-month state of emergency. The law prohibits unauthorized protests and bans possession of weapons by individuals.
Residents fear Mogadishu could slide back into the kind of anarchy that gripped the city since 1991 and await to see whether the government can impose the relative stability experienced under the Islamists.
Warlords agreed on Friday to merge their forces into a new national army to tame the chaotic nation but deadly fighting outside where they met showed how hard that task will be.
Peacekeepers
Somalia’s government wants African peacekeepers to be deployed as soon as possible and African Union officials arrived in Somalia at the week-end to finalize plans for the force.
The African Union’s Peace and Security Council agreed this week to increase the number of troops from a proposed 8,000-strong deployment and called on the international community to fund the peace mission.
Uganda is ready to provide the first battalion, but awaits its parliament’s approval. Kenya, chair of regional body IGAD, has sent top officials to several African nations to seek support for the force.
Kenyan officials told Reuters President Mwai Kibaki had sent his senior ministers to Rwanda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola, Zambia, Tunisia and Algeria.
“Now that the AU team has come, this clearly shows that the Ethiopian troops will leave the country in two to three weeks or after a month,” Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said on Sunday.
Washington launched an air strike on southern Somalia on Monday, which officials said was aimed at al Qaeda suspects accused of bombing two U.S. embassies and an Israeli-owned hotel in east Africa. The strike was the United States’ first overt military involvement in Somalia since a disastrous peacekeeping mission ended in 1994.
It killed up to 10 al Qaeda allies, but missed its main target of three top suspects, the U.S. government said. Washington denies carrying out any further strikes.
