Islamist rebels in Somalia kill three as Ramadan starts
Sun Jun 29, 2014 12:25pm GMT
* Al Shabaab warned of attacks during fasting month
* Two traffic police, one soldier gunned down
* Somalia wrecked by more than two decades of conflict
By Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar
MOGADISHU, June 29 (Reuters) - Islamist rebels shot dead three members of
Somalia's security forces in the capital on Sunday, police and witnesses
said on the first day of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month when insurgents
had warned they would stage attacks.
The government and African Union peacekeepers have stepped up security to
try to prevent assaults during the month by the Islamist al Shabaab group,
which has waged a seven-year campaign to impose its strict interpretation of
Islamic law.
Two traffic police men were gunned down by militants on Maka al Mukaram
road, a major thoroughfare through the centre of Mogadishu, the commander of
traffic police, Ali Hirsi, told Reuters. "The attackers escaped," he said.
In a northern district of the city, a soldier was shot dead by men with
pistols, shopkeeper Ali Abdullahi said, adding it happened on the street
outside his store.
Al Shabaab has a strong presence in the north of the capital, residents say.
The group claimed responsibility for all three killings. "This marks the
beginning of our operations. More are to follow," the spokesman for al
Shabaab's military operations, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, told Reuters.
Another al Shabaab spokesman, Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, had said on Saturday
that the extra deployment of African Union and Somali forces would not be
able to halt their operations.
Al Shabaab also staged a series of gun and bomb attacks last year during
Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk.
In the past year or so, al Shabaab has killed dozens of people in
guerrilla-style assaults in Mogadishu, on U.N. offices, the presidential
compound, parliament and the courts.
The government, which is trying to impose order on a nation that has been
ruined by more than two decades of conflict, has said it wants more
international training and other help, and has also improved coordination
between its security agencies.
"The security situation remains unpredictable," the U.N. special
representative for Somalia, Nick Kay, told Reuters in Nairobi on Saturday.
He noted the government's warning about attacks during Ramadan, saying it
was "apparently a traditional period of al Shabaab activity."
The African Union forces mounted a new offensive earlier this year against
al Shabaab strongholds in the country, driving the militants out of several
towns.
But the group still controls swathes of countryside and has made it
difficult for the government to send supplies to newly regained towns. That
worries officials who say the failure to help inhabitants could be used as
propaganda by al Shabaab.
(Additional reporting by Drazen Jorgic in Nairobi; Writing by Edmund Blair;
Editing by Andrew Heavens)