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| Africa Horn |
| Al-Shabaab vows further attacks |
| 2009-02-24 |
| Somalia's hardline Islamist movement Al Shaba'ab pledged on Monday to carry out further attacks against African peacekeepers after the deadliest strike yet killed at least 11 soldiers from Burundi. "This is our land and you are non-believers," said a statement in Somali on a website used by the militants, who are fighting against the Somali government and a 3,500-strong African Union (AU) peacekeeping force. "Leave us for your safety or we shall never tire of increasing your death toll." The site, www.kataaib.info, posted photos of two young men it said were suicide bombers who detonated explosives in a jacket and a car next to an AU compound on Sunday in a former university of Somalia's coastal capital Mogadishu. The militants' internet statement said 52 people died and 34 were wounded in the attack. The AU said the compound was targeted by mortar bombs, not suicide bombers. It said 15 were injured, as well as 11 killed. Witnesses, however, appeared to back the version of a suicide attack. They described a car speeding towards the gate before hearing a blast and seeing plumes of smoke rise. Somalia's new leaders - President Shaikh Sharif Ahmad, a moderate Islamist, and Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, the Western-educated son of a slain former president - were due in Mogadishu later yesterday. They have been in neighbouring Djibouti to select a cabinet under a UN-brokered process intended to form a unity government and end 18 years of conflict in the failed Horn of Africa state. Their biggest threat is from Al Shaba'ab which, together with allied militia, controls large swathes of south Somalia including the strategic towns of Baidoa and Kismayu. By contrast, the government controls only parts of Mogadishu. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Al Shaba'ab is one group that really, truly needs to be on the receiving end of an ARCLIGHT strike. Several times. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2009-02-24 14:04 |