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2007-04-29 Africa Horn
PM says most fighting ended, many hostile areas overrun
(SomaliNet) Somalia’s Prime Minister Mr Ali Mohamed Ghedi said “most fighting” had ended in Somalia with many hostile areas overrun yet Ethiopian tanks supporting the Somali interim government pounded insurgent positions in Somali capital Mogadishu on Thursday.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Ghedi said Somali government troops backed by Ethiopian tanks were still working on the ninth day of battles with insurgents to clear “pockets of resistance”, after clashes locals say have killed some 300 people, most of them civilians.

“Most of the fighting in Mogadishu is now over. The government has captured a lot of territory where the insurgents were,” Ghedi told a news conference. Artillery and machine-gun fire could still be heard in northern parts of the city.

The Somali Premier urged any clan militia who had joined the ranks of Islamist gunmen and foreign jihadists in fighting the government to return to their homes and stay there until his administration could incorporate them into a new national army.

Meanwhile, the battles have devastated neighbourhoods of Mogadishu, forcing about half of its residents to flee. The UN refugee agency said on Wednesday that the exodus of nearly 340,000 people was fast turning the seaside capital into a “ghost city”.

According to residents, Thursday’s clashes around an anti-government stronghold in the north were the fiercest yet. “We are under heavy artillery and tank shelling.

A fighter from the capital’s dominant Hawiye clan said the Ethiopians are using whatever forces and material they have. “This is the heaviest attack we have seen since the war started.”

Locals and rights activists say some 300 people have died in the most sustained battles since the joint Somali-Ethiopian force routed the Islamists in a war over the New Year.

More than 1,000 people were killed in a previous spike in fighting at the end of March. The interim government says there will be no let-up in the violence until it wipes out the insurgency defying its attempt to restore central rule to the Horn of Africa nation for the first time in 16 years.

Doctors at a paediatric and maternity clinic did their best to treat scores of wounded who found no space on Thursday among the bloodied wards of the city’s two main hospitals.

“We have the doctors but we do not have medical material and medicine. We are hoping to get medical supplies from the Red Cross soon,” Abdulahi Hashi Kadiye, deputy director of Banadir Hospital, told Reuters.

The incessant shelling also started a fire at warehouses stocked with building material and paints, sending thick plumes of smoke above the Industrial Road area of factories.
Posted by Fred 2007-04-29 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11134 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 The incessant shelling also started a fire at warehouses stocked with building material and paints, sending thick plumes of smoke above the Industrial Road area of factories.

Really? There are warehouses and factories in Somalia that are stocked with goods? How is that possible? I am surprised that there is anything working, existing or operating even a government - certainly not a society. If Iraq is on the cusp of incurable anarchy (ala Taliban in 96) then Somalia must be something out of a Mad Max movie set.
Posted by Jack is Back!">Jack is Back!  2007-04-29 12:20||   2007-04-29 12:20|| Front Page Top

#2 Meanwhile, the battles have devastated neighbourhoods of Mogadishu, forcing about half of its residents to flee. The UN refugee agency said on Wednesday that the exodus of nearly 340,000 people was fast turning the seaside capital into a “ghost city”.


Good, can't hide among the innocent civilians.
Posted by Redneck Jim 2007-04-29 12:27||   2007-04-29 12:27|| Front Page Top

#3 The Somali Premier urged any clan militia who had joined the ranks of Islamist gunmen and foreign jihadists in fighting the government to return to their homes and stay there until his administration could incorporate them into a new national army.

Idiot.
Posted by Redneck Jim 2007-04-29 12:31||   2007-04-29 12:31|| Front Page Top

#4 The Ethiopians are doing it right - utterly crushing all opposition with heavy firepower. That's the mistake we made in Iraq - failing to utterly crush the opposition. Now we have an "insurgency", fed by various groups for their own purpose, all attacking those that want to get on with their lives. I hope the Iraqi Army takes the Turkish Army as their example - absolutely refusing to allow any type of government but a secular democracy to take root.
Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot  2007-04-29 14:18|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]  2007-04-29 14:18|| Front Page Top

#5 The Ethiopians are doing it right - utterly crushing all opposition with heavy firepower. That's the mistake we made in Iraq - failing to utterly crush the opposition. Now we have an "insurgency", fed by various groups for their own purpose, all attacking those that want to get on with their lives. I hope the Iraqi Army takes the Turkish Army as their example - absolutely refusing to allow any type of government but a secular democracy to take root.
Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot  2007-04-29 14:18|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]  2007-04-29 14:18|| Front Page Top

#6 Don't forget, OP, that Somalia is also cut-off from supplies, since boats to and from Yemen don't seem to float very well. Landward, you have Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti. Maybe Sudan can help the "brave Minutment." I don't remember if they touch.
Posted by Jackal">Jackal  2007-04-29 21:16|| http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]  2007-04-29 21:16|| Front Page Top

#7 OP: That's the mistake we made in Iraq - failing to utterly crush the opposition.

"Shock and awe", which is no more than a new name for the age-old decapitation strategy (i.e. take out the king, and his kingdom is yours for the taking), doesn't work in an age of nationalism and universal education (i.e. indoctrination). What we've seen in Iraq is that you may well have to kill off a fair chunk of the combat-age males before any kind of peaceful occupation is possible. 8 million dead Germans (around 10% of the German population) in WWII were the price of a peaceful post-war occupation.
Posted by Zhang Fei 2007-04-29 21:23|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com]  2007-04-29 21:23|| Front Page Top

#8 What we've seen in Iraq is that you may well have to kill off a fair chunk of the combat-age males before any kind of peaceful occupation is possible. 8 million dead Germans (around 10% of the German population) in WWII were the price of a peaceful post-war occupation.

I believe that this equation will also apply to Islam as a whole.
Posted by Zenster">Zenster  2007-04-29 23:39||   2007-04-29 23:39|| Front Page Top

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