SOMALIA: Mogadishu rocked by guerrilla-style attacks, as U.S. aircraft reportedly bomb Islamists in southern Somalia.

Record ID: 352910

  • Title: SOMALIA: Mogadishu rocked by guerrilla-style attacks, as U.S. aircraft reportedly bomb Islamists in southern Somalia.
  • Date: 21st January 2007
  • Summary: TRACKING SHOT OF ETHIOPIAN TROOPS WITH AK47 RIFLES PATROLLING OUTSIDE THE PRESIDENTIAL PALACE WALL VARIOUS IMAGES OF REMNANTS OF U.S. ARMOURED VEHICLE BURNT DOWN IN 1992 NEAR PRESIDENTIAL PALACE MOGADISHU STREET SCENE
  • Embargoed: 5th February 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Somalia
  • Country: Somalia
  • Topics: War / Fighting,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA3M8YMD0PTDBVV3YHLB58N9TJS
  • Story Text: At least four people were killed after Somali gunmen ambushed government and Ethiopian troops in a crowded Mogadishu market. The guerrilla-style attack follows mortar strikes on the presidential palace, and in the south, U.S. and Ethiopian forces reportedly continue to pursue Islamic militias.

    A Somali gunman opened fire on an Ethiopian military convoy in Mogadishu on Saturday (January 20), triggering a heavy shootout. Civilians were caught in the crossfire and at least four people were killed, witnesses said.
    The attack -- following mortar strikes on the presidential palace on Friday -- was the latest in a guerrilla-style campaign against the Somali government and its Ethiopian military allies who drove Islamists out of the city.
    Civilians caught up in the crossfire said a gunman with an AK-47 opened fire on an Ethiopian military convoy at the livestock market in the north of the capital, triggering a heavy shootout. They said the Ethiopians fired an anti-aircraft gun into the air. Panicked bystanders fled for cover. A tank ran over a minibus in the confrontation.
    "They destroyed my truck with their tanks. I use this vehicle to earn my daily bread and feed my family of three, and now I have nothing left," truck driver Abdi Kari Mohamed said.
    Four people died and about a dozen were injured, witnesses told Reuters, indicating it was civilians who were mainly affected. It was not known if the gunman was killed.
    A mortar attack on Somalia's presidential palace, known as the Villa Somalia, Friday (January 19), was cited by the African Union as proof of the need for peacekeepers to move quickly into the Horn of Africa nation.
    The late-night gunfight took place outside the palace between palace guards and assailants, who then melted back into the streets.
    The attack on Villa Somalia was one of the most high-profile in a series of guerrilla-style strikes on the Somali government and their Ethiopian military allies who drove the Islamists out of Mogadishu over Christmas and the New Year.
    In southern Somalia, residents of the villages of Badmadow and Kulbiyow said U.S. forces were carrying out regular airstrikes against Islamic militias fleeing Ethiopian and Somali government troops advances.
    On the roads leading up to the two villages, a Reuters cameramen saw the smouldering remains of convoys of vehicles, including a large truck and a pick-up truck mounted with an anti-aircraft gun.
    Villagers say U.S airmen were using helicopters and jets based on U.S warships based offshore to track down Islamists, following their quick defeat by government-Ethiopian forces over Christmas and the New Year. Residents say helicopters sometimes land in the village of Badmadow where the Ethiopian forces have a base.
    Some residents are drawing parallels between the recent air strikes and the disastrous U.S. intervention in the early 90s.
    "The military plane, the one called the AC-130 attacked us, we know it very well, it is like those UNOSOM (United Nations Operation in Somalia) era strikes in Mogadishu in 1992-1993, when they would take off from the airport near the seashore," Mohamed Yasin, a villager in Kulbiyow said.
    Violence has flared up in recent days, as Islamists appear to switch to guerrilla-style tactics. Scattered in remote parts of the south near the border with Kenya, some Islamists have begun returning to Mogadishu in disguise, according to sources in the movement.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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