Thursday, January 29, 2009
The fighting erupted when militiamen loyal to the Sufi religious group Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa launched an attack to wrest control of the town of Dhusamareb back from the hardline Islamist group Al-Shebab.
"We saw five people killed in the clashes and 15 others who were wounded. It seems most of the victims are combatants," local elder Abdullahi Adan Hussein said by phone from the town.
He said the Shebab -- an extremist organisation with links to Al-Qaeda that had recently taken control of Dhusamareb -- were pushed out of the town by the Ahlu Sunna fighters.
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| African Union peacekeepers patrol in Mogadishu |
"The town has now fallen in the hands of the Ahlu Sunna militias and the Shebab fighters have fled," the elder said.
There was no immediate statement from either armed group.
"The Ahlu Sunna militias took control of the town and started patrolling the area but there is still sporadic gunfire on the outskirts of the town," local resident Jamal Mohamed said.
"I could see dead bodies and wounded people in the streets and terrified civilians were fleeing the fighting," Hassan Muktar, another witness, said.
Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa is a national Sufi movement which had not been known to engage in armed action in recent years.
But
some of its members in the Dhusamareb region recently took up arms
against the Shebab, whose ideology is closer to the more rigorist
Wahhabi brand of Islam.
SOURCE: AFP, Thursday, January 29, 2009