From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Mon Jan 11 2010 - 09:20:16 EST
Fighting in two Somali towns kills at least 18
Mon Jan 11, 2010 12:46pm GMT
* Battles erupt in Baladwayne and Dhobley
* Rights group says death toll likely to rise
* Al Shabaab says U.S. planning suicide blasts
(Adds al Shabaab claim, paragraphs 14-16)
By Abdi Sheikh and Abdi Guled
MOGADISHU, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Fighting killed at least 18 people on Monday
in two towns in central Somalia where rebels battled a pro-government
militia and each other, according to witnesses.
The Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca militia, which is aligned with President Sheikh
Sharif Ahmed's weak U.N.-backed administration, struck at Hizbul Islam
insurgents in Baladwayne on Sunday and residents said clashes between the
two sides resumed on Monday.
Separately, Hizbul Islam fighters battled in Dhobley with members of another
guerrilla group, al Shabaab, which Washington says is al Qaeda's proxy in
the failed Horn of Africa state. Fighting has claimed the lives of more than
21,000 Somalis and driven 1.5 million from their homes since the start of
2007.
Western security agencies say the country is a haven for militants and
foreign jihadists with the potential to disrupt neighbouring countries.
The rebels want to extend their area of control from the south towards the
pro-government, northeastern region of Puntland. Ahmed's government controls
little more than the sea port, the airport and his palace in Mogadishu.
Residents in Baladwayne said both sides were exchanging heavy machine gun
fire in the streets on Monday, and a Somali human rights group said the
death toll of 13 was likely to rise.
"Both groups carried away their casualties. We do not know how many fighters
died," Ali Yasin Gedi, vice chairman of the Elman Peace and Human Rights
Organisation, told Reuters.
CLASHES NEAR KENYA BORDER
Separately, witnesses said at least five people were killed on Monday as
Hizbul Islam and al Shabaab rebels fought each other in Dhobley town,
further west near the border with Kenya.
Hizbul Islam and al Shabaab both want to impose a harsh version of sharia
across the country -- but have regularly clashed over southern and central
territories in recent months.
"We attacked the police station and a military compound in Dhobley. We have
killed dozens of al Shabaab fighters," Hizbul Islam member Mahmed Amin told
Reuters by telephone.
"We will never stop the fighting."
An al Shabaab spokesman in the rebel-held port of Kismayu denied anyone had
died in Dhobley, but declined to elaborate.
In the capital, al Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage accused the
United States of plotting suicide bombings targeting parts of the city
including its busy Bakara Market, and said Washington then planned to blame
the violence on the insurgents.
"We have discovered that U.S. agencies are going to launch suicide bombings
in public places in Mogadishu," Rage told reporters. "They have tried it in
Algeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan ... We warn of these disasters. They want
to target Bakara Market and mosques, then use that to malign us."
Many residents were sceptical of the claim by the rebels, however, pointing
out that al Shabaab was the only group to have carried out suicide attacks
in the country in the past.
On Sunday, Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca militiamen said they had executed an al
Shabaab commander after he refused to renounce al Shabaab's hardline
ideology. [ID:nLDE6090D6] (Additional reporting by Sahra Abdi in Nairobi;
Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Ralph Boulton)
C Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved
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