Somalia’s hard-line Islamist insurgent movement al-Shabaab pledged on Monday to carry out further attacks against African peacekeepers after the deadliest strike yet killed at least 11 soldiers from Burundi.
”This is our land and you are non-believers,” said a statement in Somali on a website used by the militants, who are fighting against the Somali government and a 3 500-strong African Union (AU) peacekeeping force.
”Leave us for your safety or we shall never tire of increasing your death toll.”
The site, www.kataaib.info, posted photos of two young men it said were suicide bombers who detonated explosives in a jacket and a car next to an AU compound on Sunday in a former university in Somalia’s coastal capital, Mogadishu.
The militants’ internet statement said 52 people died and 34 were wounded in the attack.
The AU said the compound was targeted by mortar bombs, not suicide bombers. It said 15 were injured, as well as 11 killed.
Witnesses, however, appeared to back the version of a suicide attack. They described a car speeding towards the gate before hearing a blast and seeing plumes of smoke rise.
New leaders arriving
Somalia’s new leaders — President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, and Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, the Western-educated son of a slain former president — were due in Mogadishu later on Monday.
They have been in neighbouring Djibouti to select a Cabinet under a United Nations-brokered process intended to form a unity government and end 18 years of conflict in the failed Horn of Africa state.
Their biggest threat is from al-Shabaab which, together with allied militia, controls large swathes of south Somalia including the strategic towns of Baidoa and Kismayu.
By contrast, the government controls only parts of Mogadishu.
Since the start of an Islamist insurgency at the beginning of 2007, at least 16 000 civilians have been killed and a million people uprooted from their homes.
Al-Shabaab gained support as one of many groups waging war against Ethiopian troops who had been propping up the previous government for the last two years.
The Ethiopian withdrawal in January placated some Somalis, but al-Shabaab has now turned its fire on the African peacekeeping mission and the new government.
Regional diplomats hope the inclusion of many moderate Islamists in the government will provide a new political dynamic that may marginalise hardliners like al-Shabaab.
The group is on Washington’s list of terrorist groups and is known to have foreign fighters within its ranks.
Analysts are split over al-Shabaab’s strength in Somalia.
Some say it could overrun the government and take over the south, while others say it only has a few thousand fighters and waning popular support yet has managed, via the media and high-profile strikes, to project an image of greater power. — Reuters