SOMALIA: Five people are killed in a cross fire in Mogadishu after Islamist insurgents attack a plane carrying cargo for UN peacekeepers

Record ID: 353025

  • Title: SOMALIA: Five people are killed in a cross fire in Mogadishu after Islamist insurgents attack a plane carrying cargo for UN peacekeepers
  • Date: 2nd October 2008
  • Summary: (W4) MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (OCTOBER 1, 2008) (REUTERS) SHOP IN BAKARA MARKET HIT BY MORTAR STILL BURNING VARIOUS OF BAKARA MARKET WOUNDED CIVILIAN BEING CARRIED ON A CART
  • Embargoed: 17th October 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Somalia
  • Country: Somalia
  • Reuters ID: LVAX1ZPS8SH54FCC6VSRCGJM2LP
  • Story Text: Five people were killed in Mogadishu after Islamists fired mortars at a military plane carrying equipment for African Union troops on Wednesday (October 1) in the lawless city's airport, which Islamists have declared closed.
    Witnesses say the AU troops fired back and mortars from the exchange hit in and around the normally packed Bakara market, killing at least 5 people and wounding 7.
    Bakara market's densely-populated area is considered a stronghold of the Islamist insurgents.
    Islamists are battling the Somali government and their Ethiopian military backers in a nearly two-year conflict that some are calling Africa's "Iraq".

    "Probably it was between 3:00 and 3:30pm when the mortar hit this store and it immediately started burning. I saw two people dead including a young man who worked in one of the shops and three others wounded inside and outside the store," said Mohamed Hassan, a resident of Mogadishu.
    After being chased away from their power-base, Mogadishu, Islamists launched an insurgency in early 2007 that has killed nearly 10,000 civilians and an unknown number of combatants.
    They have become increasingly bold in the last two months, stepping up attacks in the Somali capital and capturing the strategic southern port of Kismayu.
    Al Shabaab is on Washington's terrorism list, and Western security services say the Islamists have close links to al Qaeda. Rebel leaders, however, depict themselves as nationalists fighting an unwanted occupation by Ethiopia.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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