SOMALIA
CLASHES CLAIMS MORE LIVES
Clashes
between Ethiopian troops and Islamic activists left more than a
dozen people in southern and central regions of Somalia dead.
Islamist fighters, opposed to Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia to
support its interim government, ambushed a convoy of Ethiopian
forces in the central Hiraan region on Wednesday, triggering an
exchange of mortar bombs and machinegun fire.
Islamist spokesman Abdirahim Issa Adow told Reuters on Thursday
that only two fighters had been killed, including a senior
Mujahideen, and three wounded in the fighting.
“The enemy troops mercilessly killed many civilians after we
attacked them because they treat all Somalis the same” he said.
“We will carry on fighting the Ethiopians until they leave our
country.
Further south, residents in the lower Shabelle region said at
least seven people were killed in separate clashes between the
two sides late on Wednesday after another Islamist ambush on an
Ethiopian convoy.
“We had to flee the village because fighting spread to our
side,” said witness Ali Diriye. “We are now burying the seven
who were killed”.
Somalia’s Western backed government has largely failed to impose
its authority on the horn of Africa country since its forces and
Ethiopian soldiers routed rival Islamist leaders at the end of
2006.
Although a senior commandeer of the armed wing of the Sharia
courts group was killed in U.S. air strike last week, his al
Shahhab followers have vowed retaliation against the allied
Somali Ethiopian forces.
REUTERS
