New Fighting in Somalia's Capital Called Worst in Months

MISNA

25 May 2006 - 13:23

The situation is degenerating in Mogadishu, where violent fighting is now reported in different areas of the city, as referred to MISNA by local sources contacted by phone in various neighbourhoods of the Somali capital.

It is difficult to obtain an exact toll of the fighting: it appears that over twenty have been killed and an unspecified number wounded.

Following yesterday�s clashes, the battle resumed this morning in the so-called �kilometre 4� area and has now expanded to many neighbourhoods. The fighting involves some warlords of the self-styled �Counter-terrorism Alliance� and militants of the so-called Islamic Courts.

�We can�t understand what is really occurring today: it seems as if everyone is at war against everyone,� stated to MISNA the representative of a local human rights group in Mogadishu.

Based on testimonies cited by a city radio, heavily armed militants created roadblocks with trucks and blocked the taxi mini-buses in circulation, forcing the passengers to proceed on foot. Different witnesses defined today�s fighting as �the worst of the past months,� even more so than those of the second week of May that left some 150 dead--for the most part civilians--and over 250 wounded.

Witnesses told MISNA that the Islamic militants have taken control of the famous �Sahafi Hotel�, near �kilometre 4�, so far controlled by the warlords. In February 2005 a BBC producer was killed outside the hotel.

Among the neighbourhoods at the centre of the fighting is also Deynille, stronghold of Mohammed Kanyare Afrah, one of the warlords that also holds the post of security minister of the Somali transitional government, who today denied reports of his resignation, widely demanded in the past days by many parliamentarians.

Kanyare commands several hundreds of militants that ensure control of a small airport, from which elevated proceeds transit thanks to khat, a light drug very widespread in Somalia that arrives each day by air from Kenya.

It is widely believed that the fighting of the past weeks--aside from the �ideological� cover between the self-styled Counter-Terrorism Alliance indirectly backed by the US and militants of the Islamic Courts--is mainly over control of the lucrative illegal trafficking that Somalia has survived on since 1991 after the fall of Siad Barre.

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