Monday, May 8, 2006 Posted: 1346 GMT (2146 HKT)
MOGADISHU, Somalia (Reuters) — Islamic militia and fighters for a self-styled “anti-terrorism” alliance of warlords battled for a second day on Monday in Somalia’s lawless capital, bringing the death toll to at least 19, residents said.
With hospitals taking in new casualties and gunshots echoing round the bullet-scarred streets of Mogadishu’s poor Siisii area, many people were fleeing in fear of another major flare-up between the two warring factions.
Two previous battles in February and March this year killed about 90 people, with U.S. cash thought by many to be financing the warlords opposing the militia linked to Islamic courts.
Hospital sources and Mogadishu residents told Reuters a further eight people — including three civilians — had died in fighting on Monday, adding to 11 on Sunday.
Nearly 30 people have been wounded, they said.
Hussein Gutale Rage, a spokesman for the coalition, confirmed by telephone that fighting had begun again on Monday. “We will continue fighting until they (the Islamic militia) stop shooting at us,” he said, adding most casualties were civilians.
Islamic leaders in Mogadishu have said Washington is giving money to the coalition as part of its counterterrorism strategy, an assertion accepted by many both inside and outside the Horn of Africa nation of 10 million. (Full story)
Somalia’s interim President Abdullahi Yusuf said last week that Washington was backing the warlords.
The United States has long viewed mainly Muslim Somalia as a potential haven for Islamic militants since it has been without central government from 1991.
But Gutale denied that.
“Abdullahi Yusuf should stop behaving like an amateur,” he said. “If he has any evidence that the U.S. is backing us, he should table it and bring the cash payment vouchers we signed.”
Yusuf heads a government formed in neighboring Kenya in 2004 in the 14th attempt to restore central rule to the Horn of Africa nation since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991. But the fledgling administration has been forced to base itself in the provincial town of Baidoa and has little power.
Speaking from Baidoa, Information Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayr called for peace in Mogadishu. “We want to urge both warring parties to cease fighting immediately and stop shedding the blood of innocent Somalis,” he said.
Hayr conceded Yusuf’s government had no “tangible proof” of U.S. money going to the warlords. “The president was responding to a growing belief from the public as indicated by both local and international press,” he said of Yusuf’s remarks last week.
U.S. officials have mainly avoided comment on the issue.
A militia leader fighting for the Islamic courts said they will fight on until they capture the Siisii neighborhood.
“I can see three of our militia injured but am not sure in total how many have been wounded or killed today,” he added by telephone from the battlefield as gunshots sounded.
Carrying her few possessions, mother-of-four Rahmo Yusuf said she was running away from the fighting with her children. “We are moving to other parts of the town because of continual stray bullets,” she told Reuters by telephone.
Another resident, Halima Jimale, who lives in the worst-affected Siisii district, said she wanted to escape but did not know how. “We are confused,” Jimale, a mother of seven, said. “We don’t know where to go.
Source: Reuters, May 8, 2006
