No image available
/ 31 May 2007

Somali troops briefly seize port in pay row

Several hundred Somali soldiers briefly seized the southern port of Kismayu in a protest over unpaid salaries in the latest sign of the turmoil plaguing the Horn of Africa nation, residents said on Thursday. Business was brought to a standstill as about 800 troops took up positions across Somalia’s third city on Tuesday, they said.

No image available
/ 16 October 2006

Islamists clash with southern Somali militia

Troops loyal to powerful Somali Islamists clashed with rival militia fighters in a southern town, killing four and stoking fears of mounting violence in the Horn of Africa nation, residents said on Monday. Two gunmen were killed on each side, they said, and two others wounded during the overnight battle in Jilib, an agricultural town about 110km north of Kismayo port.

No image available
/ 7 October 2006

Somali Islamists fire shots to disperse protest

Somali Islamists arrested 35 people and shot in the air to disperse a protest in Kismayo against the new administration at the key port it seized last month, witnesses said on Saturday. Scores of people took to the streets late on Friday, burning tyres and blocking roads, after the Islamists appointed a new governor, mayor and heads of the airport, port and the city’s overall security.

No image available
/ 4 October 2006

Somali Islamists vow holy war against enemies

Somalia’s radical Islamic leaders held a rally on Wednesday that drew thousands of mostly women and students in the port city of Kismayo, and vowed to wage holy war against any group that tries to stop their military advances. ”By God, we will wage a holy war against our enemies,” senior Islamic official Mohammed Wali Sheik Ahmed told a crowd of at least 5 000.

No image available
/ 27 September 2006

Somali Islamists disarm militia after port takeover

Somali Islamists disarmed hundreds of militiamen in the port of Kismayo on Wednesday, seizing battlewagons and guns in a move to further cement their control over the city they took this week. Officials from the Juba Valley Alliance, which controlled the region around Somalia’s third largest city before Islamists took over on Monday, gathered in an open field to present their weapons.

No image available
/ 25 September 2006

Somali Islamists open fire on protesters

Islamist fighters opened fire in the direction of protesters in Somalia’s southern port of Kismayo on Monday, wounding at least two, witnesses said. The shooting came as several thousand Somalis took to the streets shouting anti-Islamist slogans, burning tyres and throwing stones in protests against the Islamist takeover of the city overnight.

No image available
/ 25 September 2006

Somali Islamists vow to fight peacekeepers

Islamist gunmen patrolled Kismayo, a key southern port, on Monday, vowing to impose strict sharia law just hours after they seized the town in a new threat to Somalia’s weak government. Hundreds of turbaned, heavily armed fighters on ”battlewagons” — machine-gun mounted pick-ups — took up positions in and around Kismayo, witnesses said.