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Ten killed in Somali attacks
15/08/2007 19:14 - (SA)
Mogadishu - Ten people were killed around Mogadishu on Wednesday as insurgent violence continued to plague efforts by Ethiopia-backed government troops to stabilise the Somali capital, police and witnesses said.
Five Somali soldiers died when their vehicle drove over a landline in northern Mogadishu's Arafat district, one of the city's most violent areas.
"I only saw one soldier who survived the landmine explosion. Others died and their bodies were collected from the scene," witness Abdulaziz Ahmed Nur said as police confirmed the fatalities.
Gunmen killed two civilians in the capital's Bakara market, witnesses said.
"One of them was killed inside a pharmacy and I saw the other one being carried on a wheelbarrow," said resident Yusuf Ali Mohamed.
Relentless violence
A civilian was killed in southern Mogadishu's Blacksea district when insurgents hurled a grenade at an army patrol, prompting soldiers to respond with gunfire.
It was not clear whether the civilian was killed by the blast or by gunfire.
Two other civilians died when a grenade explosion rocked a crowded market in Afgoye Township, about 30km west of Mogadishu, witnesses said.
Abdullahi Sheikh Addow, who saw the attack, said the explosion ripped through the animal market, killing two people and wounding at least 12. A medic at Afgoye Hospital corroborated the toll.
Relentless violence has dogged Mogadishu and outlying districts since early this year when Ethiopian forces backing Somali troops dislodged an Islamist movement, sparking an insurgency by remnants of the militants.
The latest violence brings to more than 30 the number of people killed in Mogadishu in the past two days.
Chronic violence in Somalia has defied more than a dozen attempts to restore peace since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre that sparked anarchic bloodletting.
The 1993 shock killing of United Nations and United States peacekeepers quelled any appetite among Western powers for further intervention, abandoning the country to a morass of violence.
At least 1 500 African Union peacekeepers from Uganda are now deployed in the capital but with limited ability to act.
Mogadishu is currently hosting more than 1 000 clan representatives who are discussing ways of ending violence and promoting reconciliation.
But the government-sponsored event which kicked off in July is being boycotted by the Islamists and a large section of Mogadishu's dominant Hawiye clan.
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