MOHAMED ALI BILE IN MOGADISHU
TERRIFIED Mogadishu residents hid in their homes yesterday as fierce fighting between rival militias killed at least 50 people, witnesses said.
Firing mortars, grenades and anti-aircraft guns, Islamic militia fought running battles with gunmen from a coalition of warlords, in a resumption of the worst violence in the Somali capital for a decade.
Scores had fled the fighting, which erupted two days ago and intensified yesterday morning as it spread across Mogadishu. Others, caught in the crossfire, lay in the streets, crying in pain as old people and children ran in terror.
“I am sure 50 people have died, the wounded are countless because mortars and missiles were hitting everywhere,” Ali Nur, a member of the warlord alliance wounded in the fighting, said by telephone as he left hospital.
The battle for Mogadishu erupted in February. The latest round ended a brief ceasefire brokered by clan elders.
So far nearly 300 people have been killed, most of them civilians, in fighting that was largely confined to the north of the coastal capital, but has since spread south.
Some Somalia analysts view the violence as a new proxy war between Washington and Islamic militants. Washington has long viewed Somalia, without any real government since the ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, as a terrorist haven.
By yesterday afternoon, the fighting in the Kilometre Four area, where the main battle had taken place, had subsided and only Islamic militiamen patrolled its usually busy streets. But gun battles continued in the Galgato and Dayniile areas.
“No-one is going out now. There are fears there will be more fighting,” said Abdifatah Abdikadir, a resident.
“I have never seen such a heavy exchange. Mogadishu is blazing with fire,” Ibrahim Maalim, a warlord coalition member, said from the city as heavy artillery and gunshots reverberated.
“There are bodies lying everywhere. I cannot count them and there are wounded people lying on the streets crying for help.”
The coalition says the Islamic militia are harbouring al-Qaeda-linked militants, and some Western diplomats believe al-Qaeda operatives run training camps there.
But there are political and commercial elements behind the battles as well. Both the warlords and the businessmen backing the Islamic militia want control of lucrative ports, airfields and road checkpoints, where militiamen collect tolls at gunpoint.
“Both sides are financed and interested in the money and not the people who are suffering,” said Ahmed Ali Haile, a lecturer on political science at Kenya’s Daystar University.
Yesterday, Somalia’s internal security minister, Mohamed Qanyare, a warlord, denied radio reports that he and three other ministers were thinking of resigning. “I did not say that,” Mr Qanyare said by telephone. “I said we are busy fighting with terrorists now. We don’t have time for the government.”
Legislators from Somalia’s fledging government say Mr Qanyare and other warlords involved in the violence should be sacked and charged with war crimes. They say they have broken ceasefire accords during the formation of the government.
Source: Scotsman, May 26, 2006
