From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Jan 29 2010 - 07:30:30 EST
Mogadishu bloodshed mars president's anniversary
By Herve Bar (AFP)
29/01/2010
MOGADISHU - Al Qaeda-linked Somali insurgents on Friday rained mortar rounds
on a ceremony feting the first year of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's shaky
rule after a night of fighting that killed at least nine.
As poetry was being read inside a newly-renovated theatre in Mogadishu's
presidential compound, Shebab Islamist rebels and their allies pounded the
area, drawing heavy retaliatory fire.
There were surreal scenes of Sharif and his prime minister Omar Abdirashid
Sharmarke watching a video celebrating their first year in office as the
smell of gunpowder filled the room after a night of deadly clashes.
Four people were wounded on the compound but Sharif was unshaken despite the
sound of explosions, outgoing or incoming mortar rounds and artillery shells
drowning the show, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
A few metres away from the freshly whitewashed walls of the theatre a
seriously wounded man was being evacuated in a carpet.
Artillery exchanges and automatic weapons fire broke out around 2:00 am
(2300 GMT Thursday) between the African Union's peacekeeping mission
(Amisom) and Islamist insurgents and ran through the night.
"Around seven civilians died in the clashes, including women and children.
Most of them were killed by mortar shells and stray bullets," Abdi Adan, an
eyewitness, told AFP.
The fighting was concentrated around the strategic K4 junction halfway
between the Somali capital's airport and the port, on the edge of an area
controlled by the African Union peacekeeping mission (Amisom).
The Shebab in a statement said two of its fighters died in the overnight
clashes.
"Four civilians died in Wardhigley district and three others were killed in
Holwadag and Bakara area. It was the worst fighting we have seen recently,"
Mohamoud Ahmed, another local resident, said.
"Kilometre Four" (K4) in southeastern Mogadishu is where the airport road
meets several other key thoroughfares and is a major flashpoint in the
war-ravaged coastal city.
Civilians living in the densely-populated neighbourhoods clamped between
Amisom-protected areas and the strongholds of the Shebab Islamist insurgents
are often caught in the crossfire.
"We have collected around 22 injured from several locations in Mogadishu and
several other people have died," Ali Musa, head of Mogadishu's ambulance
services, told AFP.
"I don't have the full figures but I know that three of the dead are a
mother and her two children," he said.
The Shebab, whose leader late last year proclaimed his allegiance to Al
Qaeda supremo Osama bin Laden, issued a statement claiming responsibility
for the shelling.
"Our holy warriors launched a fierce offensive on several locations in
Mogadishu where the apostate militias and their Christian backers were
stationed," the Shebab statement said.
They were referring to government troops, who they accuse of being puppets
of the West, and to Amisom's Ugandan and Burundian troops, who they
routinely describe as crusaders bent on introducing Christianity to Muslim
Somalia.
On January 30 last year, Somali MPs gathered in Djibouti to elect a new
president and Sharif was declared the winner the next day and hailed by many
in his country and abroad as Somalia's best chance of peace in years.
Officials had spent the week preparing for Friday's celebrations, which
included dancing, singing and poetry reading.
The ceremony was attended by most of the embattled transitional federal
government (TFG) as well as clan leaders.
Amisom's Ugandan spokesman Ba-Hoku Barigye told AFP that two men arrested
after being caught phoning in instructions to insurgents on where to fire
their mortar rounds.
Sharif, a moderate Islamist cleric, came to power a year ago pledging to
bring Islamist rebels back into the fold but the Shebab and his former
allies from the Hezb al-Islamm group instead turned against him.
The two insurgent movement in May last year launched a bruising military
offensive aimed at toppling. The almost uninterrupted fighting has killed
thousands and displaced tens of thousands.
Copyright C 2010 AFP.
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