From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Mon May 31 2010 - 10:03:36 EDT
Djibouti rebels claim to kill three soldiers
(AFP) -
31/05/2010
NAIROBI - Djibouti's rebel Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy
(FRUD) said Monday that it had fought off two attacks by the army and killed
three soldiers, in a statement sent to Nairobi.
Last Friday and Saturday, "the army undertook two attacks against fighters
of the FRUD in the north of Djibouti, near Bouya (close to the Ethiopian
border) and at Eshatou Asmadera (35 kilometres, 22 miles from Obock), the
statement said.
"These attacks were pushed back on the two fronts by FRUD fighters," the
rebel movement said, adding that two government soldiers were killed at
Bouya and one died at Eshatou.
"Tensions are very high in the regions of Mabla, Moussa Ali and Bouya",
according to the rebels, who "impute the entire responsibility for this
escalation to the obstinacy of the regime in locking itself into the logic
of war."
No independent source confirmed the rebel claims and there was no comment
from the government of President Ismail Omar Guelleh.
Recruited among the Afar community of northern Djibouti, the FRUD almost
toppled former president Hassan Gouled Aptidon in the early 1990s and fought
to defend Afar interests against the Issas, the other large ethnic community
in the country.
The moderate wing of the FRUD signed a peace accord in 1994 to form a
coalition government. The historic leader of the rebel movement and a key
opponent of the regime, Ahmed Dini Ahmed, laid down his arms in 2001.
Strategically located at the entrance to the Red Sea, Djibouti is a small,
largely desert state with a population of about half a million. It hosts the
biggest French military base abroad and the only US military base on the
African continent.
Copyright C 2010 AFP.
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