(AKI) - Six people were reported to have been killed in an attack by Islamic militants on a reconciliation conference in the Somalian capital Mogadishu on Thursday. | An attack on a peace conference. Boy, howdy, you don't get much more Islamic than that. |
The opening ceremony of the conference was interrupted last Sunday when men from the group known as Mujahadeen Youth fired rockets and grenades at the building where the conference was being held. It was immediately postponed to give some of the more than 1,000 delegates from Somalia's dozens of clans more time to arrive. Images of the attack were recorded on a video which has since been distributed on several Somali Islamic sites.
The main Islamist opposition has refused to attend, saying the venue is not neutral, while Ethiopian troops remain in the country. Ethiopia helped government troops oust Islamists from Mogadishu last December. But Somalia has been without a functioning government for 16 years and there are fears that the current government which is a UN creation, has little grass roots support and may be on the brink of collapse.