[dehai-news] (AFP) 7 Ethiopian soldiers killed in convoy ambush along the Somalia-Ethiopia border


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From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Tue Jul 01 2008 - 14:31:12 EDT


At least 26 killed in central Somalia fighting
 
by Mustafa Haji Abdinur

Tuesday 1 July 2008
 
MOGADISHU (AFP) - At least 26 people, mainly combatants, were killed on
Tuesday in fighting between Ethiopian forces and Islamist insurgents in
central Somalia, residents said.
 
The incident was one of the most serious in months and came a week
before a deadline for the implementation of a truce agreement signed by
rival factions last month in Djibouti was due to expire.
 
The insurgents ambushed an Ethiopian army convoy travelling from
Guguriel near the Ethiopian border to Mataban town, about 450 kilometres
(280 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu, they said.
 
"I counted 18 bodies in and around Mataban town," said Hussein Moaliam
Aden, an elder in Mataban, adding that he had seen the bodies of at
least seven Ethiopian soldiers lying near the ambush site.
 
Mataban residents said a child was killed as the clashes spread into the
town in Galgudud region, confirming that 26 people had been killed.
 
"One child was killed in the crossfire in Mataban," said one resident,
Mohamed Hadi Ali.
 
Residents reported that the fighting, in which both sides used armoured
vehicles, was the heaviest in the region since Ethiopian forces entered
Somalia in late 2006 to bolster the country's weak government.
 
"Most of the dead are from the rival sides. We have never seen such a
heavy fighting since the Ethiopian forces entered our country," local
resident Feisal Mohamed said.
 
Sheikh Abdirahim Isse, a spokesman for the insurgents, confirmed the
clashes and claimed the Ethiopians had suffered heavy losses.
 
"There was heavy fighting today and the Ethiopian forces suffered huge
losses. Many of them were killed and their armed vehicles destroyed,"
Isse told AFP by phone from an unknown location.
 
The Ethiopian army, which rarely comments about such incidents, has
pledged to pull out once the United Nations deploys a peacekeeping force
to bolster an embattled African Union peacekeeping force confined to
Mogadishu.
 
Since they were ousted from power last year, the Islamists have waged a
bitter guerrilla war, targeting Ethiopian, government and African Union
targets almost daily.
 
According to several international rights groups and aid agencies, the
fighting has left at least 6,000 civilians dead and displaced hundreds
of thousands in the last 12 months alone.
 
On June 9, the Somali government and its political opposition signed
agreements, including a ceasefire scheduled to enter into force within
30 days, but a radical wing of the Islamist fighters called Shebab has
refused to recognise it.
 
Instead, it has vowed to keeping fighting until Ethiopian forces pull
out of Somalia, a nation that has been plagued by an uninterrupted civil
war since the 1991 overthrow of president Mohamed Siad Barre.
 
The African Union has deployed some 2,600 peacekeepers in Mogadishu but
the contingent on the ground still falls far short of the 8,000 troops
pledged by the continental body and has failed to stem the violence.
 
At least 2.6 million Somalis are facing hunger due to acute food
shortages spurred by a prolonged drought, insecurity and high inflation.
UN famine monitors have warned that the figure could hit 3.5 million by
year's end.
 

 

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