Fighting flared on Monday between Islamist forces and troops from the semi-autonomous northern enclave of Puntland in Somalia, which many fear is on the verge of all-out war, the Islamists said.
But a minister in the Puntland administration denied that fighting had taken place.
The Islamists said soldiers from Puntland — whose leaders oppose the religious movement’s aim to put Somalia under sharia rule — ambushed them in the morning backed by fighters loyal to a warlord kicked out of Mogadishu earlier this year.
If confirmed, the clash would be the first violence since peace talks between the Islamists and Somalia’s interim government broke down in Sudan last week.
”We were attacked this morning by Puntland troops armed with heavy technicals,” Islamist defence chief Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siad ”Inda’ade” told reporters in Mogadishu, using the Somali term for pickups turned into battle-wagons.
”We did not attack the Islamic Courts,” Puntland’s Rural Development Minister Ali Abdi Aware told local HornAfrik radio.
”We view the accusations as a provocation. We are still in our defensive positions at Galkaayo.”
But Islamist sources said the fighting was taking place near Galinsoor, which lies about 60km south of Puntland.
”We were attacked by Puntland troops accompanied by fighters loyal to Abdi Qaybdiid,” one Islamist commander told Reuters by telephone from the field, referring to the warlord kicked out of Mogadishu. There was no immediate information on casualties.
Sharia court
The Islamists took Mogadishu and a swathe of the south in June in direct challenge to the aspirations of President Abdullahi Yusuf’s interim government to restore central rule to the chaotic country for the first time in 15 years.
The Islamists had moved in recent months to Galkaayo on the border of Puntland, which largely runs its own affairs and is Yusuf’s home turf.
Islamist defence boss Mohamed said Puntland President Adde Muse had been ”waging propaganda” against the Islamists since they set up a new sharia court in Galkaayo four months ago.
Thousands of troops from Ethiopia — which regards the Islamists as terrorists — are said by witnesses to be inside Puntland and Baidoa. Addis Ababa denies that, saying only that it has sent a few hundred military trainers to Baidoa.
”There are some Ethiopian troops in Baidoa who are training the government forces,” said Haji Mahamud Haji Mohamed ”Barbar”, commissioner for the Bay region in which Baidoa lies.
”Whoever is saying the Ethiopians have taken over security of the town is lying. Our troops and the police are patrolling the city 24 hours,” he told Reuters.
Eritrea is also accused of arming the Islamists, heightening diplomats’ fears that conflict in Somalia could quickly widen into a devastating Horn of Africa war.
Monday’s flare-up came as the interim Parliament speaker, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, was in Mogadishu to try to revive the peace process, which stalled in Khartoum on Islamist demands that Ethiopian troops leave Somali soil.
In Baidoa, about 500 protesters gathered to demonstrate against Adan’s trip, which they said they viewed as encouraging division within the government.
Both the Islamists and the interim government’s forces are facing off near Buur Hakaba, a town 30km from Baidoa on the road to Mogadishu.
Critics of the Islamists say they harbour al Qaeda-linked extremists. Islamist leaders deny that and say they simply want to restore law and order to the nation of 10 million people. – Reuters