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| Africa Horn |
| Somali holy man urges talks after 93 killed in recent violence |
| 2006-03-27 |
| Radical Islamic militiamen and rivals buried their dead Sunday and brought in more fighters during a lull after four days of combat on the outskirts of Mogadishu, witnesses said. So far, at least 93 people have died and nearly 200 have been wounded in the violence. A prominent moderate Islamic scholar appealed to the warring sides not to restart the fighting, which ranks among the deadliest in recent years in the nominal capital of this Horn of Africa country. "I offer the warring sides a venue for them to talk to resolve their differences," Sharif Sheik Muhidin said. Only junior commanders in the Islamic militia responded positively to Muhidin's call. Key leaders in the group remained silent, and the rival warlords and businessmen were wary of the offer. The two sides have been fighting for supremacy in the city's northern and northeastern outskirts since Wednesday. On Saturday, 300 Islamic militiamen staged a pre-dawn attack to capture the area's only working port, El Maan, and an airstrip on Mogadishu's northeastern outskirts. At least 20 people were killed in the fighting, but the attackers failed to reach the port and airstrip. With the lull Sunday, combatants buried dead comrades and repaired their vehicles while the groups sent in more fighters with weapons and ammunition, witnesses said. Somalia has had no effective government since 1991, when warlords ousted a dictatorship and then turned on each other, carving the nation of 8.5 million people into a patchwork of fiefdoms. The International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization that tracks conflicts, said al-Qaeda contributed to attacks on U.S. and U.N. peacekeepers in Somalia in the early 1990s. The group also said al-Qaeda used the country as a transit zone for terrorist attacks in neighboring Kenya and as a hiding place for some leading members. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 Hudna! |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2006-03-27 23:25 |
| #2 Translation. Muslims are loosing. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2006-03-27 22:22 |
| #1 The International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization that tracks conflicts, said al-Qaeda contributed to attacks on U.S. and U.N. peacekeepers in Somalia in the early 1990s. That's news to me. How trustworthy is the ICG's assessment that Al Qaeda's war against the US started that early? The group also said al-Qaeda used the country as a transit zone for terrorist attacks in neighboring Kenya and as a hiding place for some leading members. As has been said elsewhere before, about just about all of Africa. Which is why Special Forces are expanding, and why a unit of Marines just went off to Chad. (No link -- AP blurb in the local paper the other day.) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-03-27 07:14 |