MOGADISHU: Somali insurgents sparked the heaviest day of fighting in the capital in months Friday, launching simultaneous attacks on government forces and peacekeepers that killed at least 15 people, residents and a medical official said.
A spokesman for the insurgency said the early morning attacks on multiple government bases and African Union peacekeeping troops were a response to a plan for peacekeepers and the government to wrest back control of Mogadishu.
“The fighting was a response to the so-called government and the (African Union peacekeepers) trying to intimidate us by saying that they will take control of the whole capital,” Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said.
Friday’s attacks come a few days before the first anniversary of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s government. At the time it was hoped that the election of Ahmed, a former preacher, would drain support from the insurgency. But the weak and divided administration has not proved able to deliver either security or services to the population.
Italy and the African Union have recently criticized the world’s governments for not honoring their pledges to fund Somalia’s fledging security forces, which would help them offer a measure of security.
In April, donors pledged more than $250 million to fund the AU peacekeeping force for a year and the government’s security force. But by year’s end only 30 percent had been disbursed, Italian and AU diplomats have said.
Somalia has not had an effective central government for 19 years, during which time all institutions that existed have crumbled and the government has limited sources of income of its own.
The UN-backed government currently only controls a few city blocks and only the presence of about 5,100 foreign peacekeepers keeps it from being overrun altogether. The government has been planning for months to try to retake control of the capital, where insurgents openly hold courts and carry out punishments that include amputations and executions.
The US State Department says some of the insurgents are linked to Al-Qaeda, and experts say a few hundred foreign fighters have joined the insurgency. But it is unclear how much influence the foreigners or Al-Qaeda have over the insurgency, which is an uneasy alliance of factions with different objectives.
