African Union (AU) troops launched a new offensive against al-Shabaab
... successor to the Islamic Courts...
on Friday, seizing rebel positions just outside the capital for the first time. The turbans, however, have launched counter attacks. On Saturday night they struck a government military checkpoint known as 'Ex-control' in a northwest suburb of the coastal city. Soldiers with the AU's AMISOM force repelled the assault, an AMISOM front man said. Caught in the crossfire were Somalis seeking refuge in camps for displaced people, victims already of the anarchic country's two-decade civil war, or famine. "At least nine displaced people, mostly women and kiddies died in the camps near the former American embassy on Friday and Saturday night," Ali Musa, coordinator of the city's ambulance services, told Rooters.
Ex-control is a strategically important checkpoint. On the outskirts of Mogadishu, it is the final government-controlled roadblock on the road that bends south to Afgoye, a rebel stronghold about 30 km (17 miles) from the capital.
"These (two) nights al-Shabaab came close with anti-craft guns mounted on lorries, but we repulsed them," Ndayiragije Come, front man for the AU's Burundian contingent, said.
Camp resident Mohamed Sidow buried his mother on Sunday morning in a shallow grave, hours after a stray round killed her. "A bullet hit her in the head as she slept in front of our shelter last night," Sidow told Rooters. Panic engulfed the camp through the night, he said, as shells pounded the area and bullets fizzed through the air. Trapped, Sidow and others were unable to take the maimed to hospital.
"We could not carry my mother to hospital last night. Al-Shabaab's anti-aircraft fire forced us to stay put. My mother died from blood loss," he said.
Meanwhile,
...back at the bunker, his Excellency called a hurried meeting of his closest advisors. It was to be his last. They discussed the officers's efficiency rating system...
scores of families decamped Elasha town and the surrounding area after al-Shabaab said a missile fired by a US drone had hit a car in the town, about 13 km from Mogadishu, killing one of its senior krazed killers. In a statement emailed late on Saturday, the Islamic fascisti said the krazed killer was British passport holder Bilal el Berjawi, also known as Abu Hafsa. Of Lebanese descent, he grew up in west London and joined Somalia's gun-hung tough guys in early 2006. "Hafsa took on a distinguished role in the fight against the warlords that terrorised the city of Mogadishu at the time," the statement said. Asha Ibrahim, a mother of five, said she and her children were fleeing the town of Lafole, close to Elasha. "Mogadishu is no paradise, but we believe air strikes are more destructive than the shelling in Mogadishu," she told Rooters. "In Lafole, al-Shabaab is everyone's neighbour, so we are vulnerable to the bombs intended for al Qaeda."