Somali insurgents have dismissed an appeal for a ceasefire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, saying they will continue their push to oust the Western-backed government.
Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab and its ally Hizbul Islam have in recent months stepped up attempts to remove President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who came to power earlier this year as part of a United Nations-backed peace process.
Sheikh Sharif called for a suspension of the fighting, which killed almost 100 people last week, to allow people to pray in peace during Ramadan.
”We will not accept the ceasefire call,” Hizbul Islam leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a former close ally of Sheikh Sharif, told journalists on Sunday. ”This holy month will be a triumphant time … We will fight the enemy.”
The first day of Ramadan was blighted by fighting on Saturday when about a dozen people died in the capital Mogadishu.
The government was nearly brought to its knees in May, when the insurgents launched a series of fierce attacks in Mogadishu and other towns.
Early last week, however, pro-government militiamen seized control of several insurgent-controlled towns near the Ethiopian border.
An estimated 18 000 Somalis have died and more than a million have been displaced by the insurgency, which began in early 2007 following an invasion by neighbouring Ethiopia.
Ethiopia withdrew in January from Somalia, which has been embroiled in chaos since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
The government has survived, in part due to 40 tons of arms and ammunition provided by the United States.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton promised to send more assistance during a recent meeting with Sheikh Sharif in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
The US is particularly concerned that al-Shabaab, which it says has links to al-Qaeda, could launch more terror attacks on US targets in the region and beyond if it gains control of Somalia.
Al-Qaeda bombed the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1998, killing more than 200 people. — Sapa-dpa