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Gunmen attack Ethiopian soldiers
26/01/2007 07:53 - (SA)
Nasteex Dahir Farah
Kismayo - Gunmen attacked Ethiopian soldiers at a busy market in southern Somalia, killing one and wounding another, said witnesses. Forty people were arrested.
Abdullahi Hassan, a moneychanger, said the violence on Thursday broke out in the money exchange market in Kismayo.
He said: "The gunmen used pistols .... They have taken the Ethiopian soldiers' AK-47s. The people in the market ran in every direction, even I lost my shoes and had to run for my life barefooted."
According to him, Ethiopian troops arrested about 40 young men and loaded them onto a truck.
Earlier this week, Ethiopian troops, whose military strength was crucial to helping Somalia's government drive out a radical Islamic militia, began withdrawing from the country. It was not clear when the withdrawal would be complete.
Major town held by Islamists
Many Somalis resented the Ethiopian presence; their countries fought a war in 1977.
But without Ethiopia's tanks and fighter jets, the Somali government could barely assert control outside one town and couldn't enter the capital, Mogadishu, which was ruled by the Council of Islamic Courts.
The US accused the group of having ties to al-Qaeda. Kismayo, the third-largest city in Somalia, was the last major town held by the Union of Islamic Courts before the Somali government and Ethiopian forces took over.
The withdrawal of Ethiopia, which said it couldn't afford to stay in Somalia, raised a sense of urgency for the arrival of a proposed African peacekeeping force.
The African Union had approved a plan to send about 8 000 peacekeepers for a six-month mission that would eventually be taken over by the United Nations.
US launches airstrike in Somalia
Nigeria, Malawi and Uganda had said they wanted to contribute troops, but no firm plans were in place.
On Wednesday, US defence officials said the US launched an airstrike earlier this week in Somalia against suspected terrorist targets - the second such attack this month.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the strike was carried out in secret by an Air Force AC-130 gunship earlier this week, provided few details and were uncertain whether the intended target was killed.
Earlier this month, Ethiopian and US forces were pursuing three top al-Qaeda suspects, but failed to capture or kill them in an AC-130 strike in the southern part of Somalia.
A main target that time was Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, one of three senior al-Qaeda members blamed for the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
The US Navy also had had forces in waters off the Somali coast, where they had monitored maritime traffic, boarded suspicious ships and interrogated crews in an attempt to catch anyone escaping the Somalia military operations.
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