15 Somalis dead as Islamist attacks spark fighting

[January 29, 2010]  MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Somali insurgents sparked the heaviest day of fighting in the capital in months Friday, launching simultaneous attacks on government forces and peacekeepers that killed at least 15 people, residents and a medical official said.

A spokesman for the Islamic insurgency said the early morning attacks on multiple government bases and African Union peacekeeping troops were a response to a plan for peacekeepers and the government to wrest back control of Mogadishu.

"The fighting was a response to the so-called government and the (African Union peacekeepers) trying to intimidate us by saying that they will take control of the whole capital," Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage said.

Friday's attacks come a few days before the first anniversary of President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed's government. At the time it was hoped that the election of Ahmed, a former Islamist, would drain support from the insurgency. But the weak and divided administration has not proved able to deliver either security or services to the population.

Italy and the African Union have recently criticized the world's governments for not honoring their pledges to fund Somalia's fledging security forces, which would help them offer a measure of security.

In April, donors pledged more than $250 million to fund the AU peacekeeping force for a year and the government's security force. But by year's end only 30 percent had been disbursed, Italian and AU diplomats have said.

Somalia has not had an effective central government for 19 years, during which time all institutions that existed have crumbled and the government has limited sources of income of its own.

The U.N.-backed government currently only controls a few city blocks and only the presence of about 5,100 foreign peacekeepers keeps it from being overrun altogether. The government has been planning for months to try to retake control of the capital, where Islamists openly hold courts and carry out punishments that include amputations and executions.

The U.S. State Department says some of the Islamists are linked to al-Qaida, and experts say a few hundred foreign fighters have joined the Islamist insurgency. But it is unclear how much influence the foreigners or al-Qaida have over the insurgency, which is an uneasy alliance of factions with different objectives.

Ali Muse, the head of the ambulance service in Mogadishu, said more than 30 people were wounded in Friday's fighting. Women and children were among 15 people killed, he added.

Rage said they lost two fighters and killed several on the other side. It was unclear whether the Islamist dead had been counted by Muse. Islamist fighters often wear civilian clothes.

Somali police spokesman Col. Abdullahi Hassan Barise says Somali forces beat back the insurgents and that the attacks did not appear particularly serious. The AU peacekeeping mission spokesman Barigye Bahoku said that al-Shabab fighters attacked them and they defended themselves. He said the AU did not suffer any casualties.

Local residents, though, said it was the most serious single day's fighting since August.

"Artillery exchanges and automatic weapons fire echoed in all parts of the city from the north to the south just after midnight, creating new fear that the fighting was at its most intense for almost six months," said resident Iise Shekh Jama.

"It was the worst fighting we have seen for months. Mortars and stray bullets were raining down into the residential areas killing civilians. I cowered all night in our room with my kids and wife," said Aden Muse, a resident in Mogadishu's southern Medina neighborhood.

Rage says the insurgents attacked seven locations in Mogadishu. Eyewitness Haji Ibrahim Omar said one of the places attacked was a major peacekeeping base at a junction linking the port and airport, where he said AU troops used tanks to fend off the attack.

The AU has used tanks in the Somali capital before. On July 12, they drove the insurgents out of a major Somali neighborhood following months of fighting. That battle forced the insurgents to abandon their attempt to take control of Mogadishu and return to hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings.

The use of heavy weapons in civilian areas also illustrates the dilemma facing the peacekeepers: They can use their tanks and mortars to outgun the Islamists, but doing so often causes civilian casualties that may turn the population against them, making it difficult to hold territory they have taken.

[Associated Press; By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN]

Associated Press writer Mohamed Sheikh Nor in Mogadishu contributed to this report.

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