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Somali Islamist Threats after Deadly U.N. Attack
[An Nahar] Somalia's leaders vowed Thursday that progress would continue despite fresh threats by Islamist Shabaab hard boys, a day after they staged a deadly attack on the U.N. compound as a "warning" to the world body and "infidels".Eleven people were killed when the seven-man team of suicide commandos from the al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab bully boyz shot and blasted their way into the U.N. compound in Mogadishu Wednesday, before Somali and African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... forces battled their way inside to kill the gunnies. U.N. chief  the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... expressed outrage at the "despicable" attack which left eight people working for the world body dead, but said that the organization would not end its work in Somalia. In turn, the Shabaab said they would not give up their attacks. "We wanted to show the U.N. that they will have no safe haven," Shabaab front man Ali Mohamed Rage said in a speech broadcast Thursday on the bad boy Radio Andalus station. "It was a warning for those infidels (non-believers) who hope to violate the rights of the Somalia people in future." Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud called the Shabaab a "disgrace" to the country, warning that "violence and terror will not derail" progress made in the capital in the past year, a city where such bloody corpse counts were once a daily occurrence. "Over the past year, Somalia has turned a corner," he said in a statement late Wednesday. "We are now on a determined path of recovery and reconciliation." One U.N. staff member was killed, who Kenya's foreign ministry confirmed was a Kenyan national, in a statement condemning the "cruel attack". Two South African contractors, a Somali U.N. contractor, four Somali security guards and three civilians in the surrounding streets were also killed, officials said. Mohamed Yusuf, head of the Medina hospital, the capital's main trauma center, said that 18 maimed people were being treated, four of them with serious injuries. Mogadishu was reported to be calm on Thursday, with the areas around the bombed-out entrance of the now empty U.N. compound cordoned off. "The situation is quiet... security forces are conducting operations," said police colonel Abdi Mohamed. The brazen daylight attack forced aid workers to evacuate temporarily back to the secure airport zone, the headquarter barracks of the 17,000 African Union force that is fighting the Shabaab. "It was a shocking attack... we never thought Al-Shabaab  ... the personification of Somali state failure... could hit such a defended area," said local resident Ali Muktar, adding that he had seen several vehicles carrying foreign aid workers to the airport zone. One local aid worker, who asked not to be named, said that several foreign aid workers had flown to Nairobi on Thursday morning. The Shabaab celebrated the attack Thursday, with Rage claiming it showed "no tanks or military arsenals will deter our mujahedeen from defending their religion". Posted by: Fred 2013-06-21 |
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