Islamist gunmen overran a compound held by a United States-backed warlord alliance outside the lawless Somali capital on Wednesday, killing seven fighters and decapitating several, witnesses said.
Islamic militia targeted the base north of the city in the latest flare-up in fighting since the two sides began observing an informal truce on Sunday after eight days of pitched street battles in Mogadishu, they said.
In addition to those killed, at least nine fighters were wounded and a ”battlewagon” — a pick-up mounted with a heavy machine gun — was seized from the compound about 20km north of the capital, they said.
”Seven people were killed and a battlewagon was taken by the Islamic court militia,” said one of the fighters loyal to warlord Mohamed Omar Habeb Dheere, who were forced to abandon the compound after the attack.
”A few were killed by gunfire and the others were beheaded after they were captured,” said a fighter from a non-allied militia, who was near the base when the attack took place.
Dheere — a member of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism — was not at the compound at the time of the attack, they said.
The new fatalities bring the death toll from the most recent surge in violence between the alliance and the courts in and around Mogadishu to nearly 140 and came as thousands rallied for peace in the city.
More than 2 000 people attended the Islamist-sponsored demonstration in southern Mogadishu, denouncing the alliance and its foreign backers.
”The people of Mogadishu and the courts were equally attacked by the so-called alliance in the recent fighting,” said Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, chairperson of an umbrella group that represents the city’s 11 Sharia law courts.
”The alliance is not a national institution but the creation of a foreign country,” he said to cheers from the crowd that gathered under tight security provided by Islamic militia in southern Mogadishu’s Howlwadag neighbourhood.
Ahmed did not name the country in question, but his comments were a clear reference to the US, which has been accused of funding the alliance as part of its broader war on terrorism.
The US has declined to comment on its backing of the alliance but US officials have told Agence France-Presse the alliance has received US money and is one of several groups they are working with to contain a rise of radical Islam in Somalia.
US and alliance officials say the Islamic courts and their militia are harbouring foreign fighters and Muslim extremists, including members of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, a charge denied by clerics. — AFP
