By Mohamed Olad Hassan, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Mogadishu has seen increasing violence over the past month, after government troops backed by Ethiopian forces ousted the Islamic movement that controlled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia. The Islamic movement, which still has support in Mogadishu, promised an Iraq-style insurgency.
"A mortar hit our house, killing my 14-year-old daughter who had returned from school," said Sadiya Dahir Nur, adding that her sister and two cousins were wounded.
A nearby house was also hit, killing three people and wounding four, said Olad Yusuf Ahmed, a relative of the victims.
A mortar blast at a homeless camp in the residential area killed a 13-year-old girl and wounded two people, said Shamsa Hadi Abdi Wali, a nurse at nearby Banadir Hospital who had gone to the camp to offer help.
Mogadishu's airport and a hotel where the transitional government was holding a weeklong meeting to discuss reconciliation in the capital also came under mortar attack. An Associated Press reporter saw a girl injured in the attack.
Another hotel was hit by a rocket late Friday, just hours after a masked man at a pro-Islamist rally warned that Ethiopian soldiers would be attacked in their hotels. No one was injured.
The man, who gave his name only as Abdirisaq, claimed he was speaking on behalf of a group called Popular Resistance Movement in the Land of the Two Migrations, which he said was responsible for attacks on Somali government buildings and Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu.
The group claimed responsibility for the hotel attack Friday, with a message Saturday on the official Web site of Somalia's Council of Islamic Courts saying it had targeted Ethiopian generals staying there.
Somalia's two-year-old transitional government, formed with U.N. help, managed only in December to establish itself in the capital. The Horn of Africa country has had no effective national government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another, throwing the country into anarchy.
Kenya on Saturday handed over to Somali authorities about 20 people suspected of having fought with or been linked to Somalia's Islamic movement, a British diplomat and a Kenyan police officer said, both speaking on customary condition of anonymity.
Kenyan police spokesman Gideon Kibunja said he was unaware of the deportations, but the British diplomat said the suspects included four Britons who had been in Kenyan custody since Jan. 20.
A rights activist also said Kenya had deported about 20 people, including the four Britons, as well as several Kenyans and Americans.
"This appears to be a cloak-and-dagger operation, and the Kenyan authorities have kept us all in the dark," activist Al-Amin Kimathi told The Associated Press.
Source: AP, Feb 10, 2007