Mortar attack on president’s plane

Matt Brown, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: October 22. 2009 11:50PM UAE / October 22. 2009 7:50PM GMT

A Somali woman is taken to hospital after she was wounded during shelling between Islamist insurgents and Somali soldiers. Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP

NAIROBI // At least 30 people died yesterday when fierce gun battles erupted in the streets of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, after an Islamist militant group attempted to shoot down a plane carrying the president, according to the African Union.

Fighters loyal to al Shabab, a radical Islamist movement with ties to al Qa’eda, launched mortars at the seaside airport as Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s plane took off. The president was unhurt as he left for Uganda to attend a conference on refugees and internally displaced people.

AU peacekeepers based at the airport returned fire on the rebels, who control most of the beleaguered capital. The fighting spread across the city killing 30 and wounding dozens of civilians, according to news reports from Mogadishu.

Farah Olow, a shopkeeper in the city’s Bakara market, told Reuters that six people were killed by one shell that demolished a home there.

“They were taking cover in a concrete building, but such big shells can penetrate the strongest house,” he said. “We can’t go out to count how many more are dead. Bombs are raining on us.”

The bloodshed was the most intense fighting in weeks in Mogadishu, which sees almost daily battles between militants and AU soldiers and forces loyal to the transitional government.

May and June saw the heaviest fighting as al Shabab and Hizbul Islam, a competing insurgent group, launched a renewed attempt to overthrow the UN-backed government.

“This isn’t the worst fighting ever in Mogadishu,” said Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst for International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank. “These kinds of incidents always happen. This is the story of Mogadishu.”

Al Shabab has been fighting to impose a strict form of Islamic law in Somalia since 2007. The group, which includes foreign jihadists, is known for meting out harsh punishments such as amputation and stoning for suspected criminals.

Hizbul Islam, a home-grown Islamist movement led by Hassan Dahir Aweys, has co-operated with al Shabab in past battles in Mogadishu.

But the two groups had a falling out on Wednesday and clashed in the port city of Kismayo, south of the capital. Analysts say the rift shows the insurgency could be unravelling, but is still more powerful than the weak government.

“There are some divisions between al Shabab and Hizbul Islam,” Mr Abdi said. “The fact that they have fallen out is a serious blow to the insurgents. But to indicate that it is a triumph for the transitional federal government is not the case.”

The government is backed by about 5,000 AU troops, mostly from Uganda and Burundi. An AU official, who was not authorised to talk to the media and declined to be named, said there were no immediate reports of peacekeeper casualties during yesterday’s fighting.

Somalia has been rocked by near constant fighting since 1991. Before the Islamists came to power, the country was ravaged by rival warlords. Nearly half a million have died during the two decades of fighting, many from disease and starvation.

More than 1.5 million people have been displaced within Somalia due to the most recent fighting, according to the United Nations. Another half a million are refugees in neighbouring countries.

Walter Kalin, the UN representative for internally displaced people, recently visited camps inside Somalia and found appalling conditions. The international community needs to do more to end the indiscriminate violence against civilians, he said at a press conference in Nairobi on Wednesday.

“The international community is failing the 1.5 million internally displaced people in Somalia at a time when the humanitarian crisis is deepening,” he said. “I am shocked by the degree of violence facing the civilian population in central and south Somalia. Serious violations of international human rights law, in particular, indiscriminate shelling of areas populated by civilians, are being perpetrated by all parties to the conflict with total impunity.”

mbrown@thenational.ae