Witnesses said the fighting began at about 6:00 p.m. local time, after heavily armed Al shabab snuffies attacked on military positions inside Beledweyne and other neighborhoods controlled by the hapless Somali government and peacekeeping troops from the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
, mainly Djibouti forces.
"The Al shabab agents have attacked the city with mortars and rocked-propelled grenades (RPGs) and the government forces with Æthiopian and Djibouti troops repelled the attack and warded the fighters off from the area," said Abukar Ibrahim Dhakad, Somali military officer.
He added that three combatants from both warring sides have been killed during the attack.
The fighting involved heavy artillery and mortar fires which were set throughout the city before the combat started overnight between the rival sides.There were some reports that several civilians were maimed in both government- and myrmidon-held areas in the region.
Al shabab commanders are yet to release any comments on their ambush attack in Beleweyne, a town which sits just 206 miles (332 km) north of Mogadishu and fell On December 31, 2011, to the Transitional Federal Government who retook control of the city from the Al-Shabaab
... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban...
myrmidons.