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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Tue Aug 24 2010 - 09:44:50 EDT
Somali Gunmen Kill Six Lawmakers as Mogadishu Attacks Leave 60 People Dead
By Hamsa Omar and Sarah McGregor - Aug 24, 2010
At least 60 people died in Somalia, including six lawmakers, as
Islamist insurgents intensified an offensive to seize the few
remaining neighborhoods of the capital, Mogadishu, still held by the
Western-backed government.
The lawmakers died after two suicide bombers disguised as government
soldiers shot dead people staying at the Muna Hotel in the south of
the city before blowing themselves up, the Information Ministry said
in an e-mailed statement.
The escalation in fighting comes weeks after the 6,100- strong African
Union force that backs the government was joined by hundreds of
additional Ugandan soldiers. A battalion from Burundi is also on the
way and Guinea and Djibouti have pledged to send more forces to the
war-torn country.
Al-Shabaab, the Islamist militia accused by the U.S. of having links
to al-Qaeda, was responsible for the attack on the hotel, Sheikh Ali
Mohamoud Rage, a spokesman for the militia, told reporters in
Mogadishu. He said as many as 70 people died.
“This is a terrible act in this holy month of Ramadan,” Information
Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman said in a statement. “It shows their
brutality and their lack of respect for humanity.”
Insurgents
Somalia’s government has been battling insurgents, including
al-Shabaab and Hisbul Islam, since 2007. Most of southern and central
Somalia has been seized by the insurgents, while President Sheikh
Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s administration controls only portions of
Mogadishu.
The AU Mission in Somalia, known as Amisom, condemned the killings,
said Boubacar Gaoussou Diarra, special representative of the
chairperson of the AU Commission for Somalia.
“I, on behalf of the African Union, would like to call upon all
warring parties in the Somali conflict to stop such barbaric attacks
on the innocent civilian population,” he said in an e-mailed
statement.
Fighting between government forces and the Islamist insurgents erupted
in Mogadishu yesterday as the two sides exchanged mortar fire and
al-Shabaab fighters fired rocket- propelled grenades, said Ali Muse
Sheikh, a paramedic at Nationlink and Lifeline Africa. Most of the 29
victims in those clashes were women killed in central Mogadishu’s
Bakara market, he said in a phone interview.
“The situation here is concerning because there is no humanitarian
assistance or hospital space,” Major Barigye Ba- Hoku, spokesman for
Amisom, said by phone from Mogadishu. “We are offering what we can as
AMISOM in terms of medical personnel.”
Millions Flee
Almost 4 million people in Somalia, equivalent to 40 percent of the
country’s population, are in need of humanitarian aid and 1.4 million
residents have been forced to flee their homes because of conflict,
Wafula Wamunyinyi, deputy head of the AU Mission in Somalia, told
reporters yesterday in Nairobi, the capital of neighboring Kenya.
Rage, the al-Shabaab spokesman, told reporters in Mogadishu yesterday
the group plans to “eradicate the invaders and apostate government
troops” in Somalia.
“I call on all al-Shabaab troops, beginning at this hour, to invade
and destroy all entrenchments of the apostate and Christian troops,”
he said.
Somalia is host to more than 2,000 foreign fighters, from India,
Pakistan and elsewhere, who are providing funds and training for
terrorist operations, Wamunyinyi said.
Muse at Nationlink said at least 97 people have been injured in the fighting.
“The casualties may increase dramatically,” he said. “Our staff has
been collecting casualties through the night.”
Somalia hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the
ouster of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. The country is
one of the poorest in the world, according to the World Bank.
To contact the reporters on this story: Hamsa Omar in Mogadishu via
Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net; Sarah McGregor in Nairobi
at smcgregor5@bloomberg.net.
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