Somali gunmen fired at a convoy of Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu, the latest in a series of attacks against forces backing the government, a Somali government source said on Monday.
The attack happened late on Sunday in the northern Arafat area, where hours before Ethiopian soldiers helped government troops seize guns and explosives in a push to restore order after ousting Islamists in a lightning December offensive.
”An Ethiopian convoy was hit near Arafat hospital … Two Ethiopian trucks were hit,” the source said. ”Thirty minutes of heavy fighting followed. There are deaths on both sides,” the source added, saying three Somalis were killed in the shoot-out.
”There were four lorries. When one of them passed, the gunmen started firing at the other three,” witness Aden Mohamoud Gedi said. ”At least one Ethiopian soldier was injured. The Ethiopians also killed a mentally ill man who did not heed their orders to stop.”
He said Ethiopian soldiers later came back to clear the remains of the vehicle.
It was not clear who carried out the attack, though suspicion will fall on Islamist remnants. Militia loyal to Somali warlords have also started returning to Mogadishu since the Islamists fled the capital late last month.
Somali gunmen have fired at Ethiopian soldiers several times this month and last week crowds hurled stones and burnt tyres to demonstrate against the forces.
Ethiopia wants to withdraw its soldiers in the coming weeks but diplomats fear that would leave the government vulnerable to remnants of the Islamists, who vow guerrilla war.
Somalia’s stability is also under threat from warlords seeking to re-create their fiefdoms.
The government is seeking to install itself in Mogadishu — one of the world’s most dangerous cities — and faces a huge challenge to bring peace and security to a nation without effective central rule since a dictator was ousted in 1991.
It is seeking to disarm residents of a city awash with guns and on Saturday Somalia’s Parliament declared a three-month state of emergency. The law prohibits unauthorised protests and bans possession of weapons by individuals.
Residents fear Mogadishu could slide back into the kind of anarchy that gripped the city after 1991 and await to see whether the government can impose the relative stability experienced under the Islamists’ strict six-month rule.
Warlords agreed on Friday to merge their forces into a new national army to tame the chaotic nation, but a fire fight that erupted outside their meeting place showed how hard that will be.
Peacekeepers
Somalia’s government wants African peacekeepers to be deployed as soon as possible and African Union officials arrived in Somalia this weekend to finalise plans for the force.
The AU’s Peace and Security Council agreed this week to increase the number of troops from a proposed 8 000-strong deployment and called on the international community to fund the peace mission.
Uganda is ready to provide the first battalion, but awaits its Parliament’s approval. Kenya, chair of regional body Igad, has sent top officials to several African nations to seek support for the force.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has sent senior ministers to Rwanda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola, Zambia, Tunisia and Algeria, Kenyan officials told Reuters.
Washington launched an air strike on southern Somalia on January 8, which officials said was aimed at al-Qaeda suspects accused of bombing two United States embassies and an Israeli-owned hotel in East Africa.
The strike was the US’s first overt military involvement in Somalia since a disastrous peacekeeping mission ended in 1994.
It killed up to 10 al-Qaeda allies, but missed its main target of three top suspects, the US government said. Washington denies carrying out any further strikes. — Reuters