Somali Leader Says Areas in Capital Recaptured From Islamists

Bloomberg
By Hamsa Omar
Monday, July 13, 2009

Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said government forces recaptured territory seized by Islamist insurgents in the capital, Mogadishu, as the rebels vowed to start targeting African Union peacekeepers.

The territorial gains represent a “clear victory” over rebels seeking his ouster, Sharif told reporters yesterday at the presidential palace in the northeast of the city. At least 21 people were killed in the latest clashes between the two sides, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday.

“This is a historic victory achieved by the government soldiers,” Sharif said. “Government forces are controlling new areas that were held previously by insurgents.”

Islamists who control most of southern Somalia began an offensive in May to try and oust Sharif, who was elected in January and has called for peace talks to end the country’s 18- year civil war. The Horn of Africa nation hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the overthrow of Mohamed Siad Barre, the former dictator, in 1991.

The African Union Mission in Somalia, or Amisom, was involved in the latest clashes after Islamist insurgents crossed a boundary near the presidential palace known as a “red line,” said Major Barigye Ba-huko, a spokesman for the peacekeepers. Amisom has 3,750 peacekeepers in Somalia, 2,050 from Uganda and 1,700 from Burundi, according to its Web site.

Islamist fighters in Somalia are grouped under the al- Shabaab militia and the Hizb-ul-Islam movement. The U.S. accuses al-Shabaab of having ties with al-Qaeda. Hizb-ul-Islam is led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the former head of the Islamic Courts Union that captured most of southern Somalia in 2006 before being ousted by U.S.-backed Ethiopian troops.

Al-Shabaab’s youth movement said yesterday it planned to target Amisom in future after alleging the peacekeepers attacked their positions.

“The mercenary AMISOM soldiers attacked our martyrs’ entrenchments and in turn we will put more pressure on them,” Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Rage, a spokesman for the Youth Mujahideen Movement, told reporters yesterday in Mogadishu. “I call on all Somalis to take their weapons because now the fighting is between Muslims and Christians.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Hamsa Omar in Mogadishu via Johannesburg at [email protected].