American Dollars are killing Somali Children

[QabiilDiid]

 

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - The death toll in Somalia's worst fighting for a decade rose to more than 120 on Thursday, as rival militias battled for control of the capital with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns.

 

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Hundreds of people were wounded as shells crashed into their homes, smashing walls and windows, in the overcrowded northern shanty town of SiiSii. Many more fled their houses to escape the fighting in the failed Horn of Africa state.

 

Hospitals said at least 27 people were killed as gunmen, manning checkpoints and racing through the streets in pickup trucks mounted with heavy guns, fought on through the night, a practice elders say is forbidden by Somali custom.

 

That brought the toll in five days of fighting to at least 121. Most of the dead are civilians and the latest fatalities included a pregnant woman and three children whose house was hit by a mortar.

 

In another incident, a witness said he saw mortars hit a house twice, killing five members of the same family, including two children.

 

"We are scared of the heavy mortars both sides are firing at innocent people," said exhausted mother-of-two, Asha Ismail, who spent the morning trying to escape the bombardment.

 

The fierce fighting is the third round of Mogadishu street battles this year between gunmen allied to Islamic courts and militia from a self-styled anti-terrorist alliance of powerful warlords widely believed to be funded by Washington.

 

"Siisii has been turned into a battleground. So many houses have been shelled and hundreds of residents are fleeing. It's a catastrophe," said Siyad Mohamed, a militia leader linked to the Islamic side. "The death toll will definitely rise."

 

A brief truce collapsed on Wednesday.

 

PROXY BATTLE

 

Analysts view the fighting as a proxy battle between Islamic militants and Washington, which has long viewed Somalia as a terrorist haven.

 

Some diplomats and security officials say there are a handful of al-Qaeda-linked militants working around Mogadishu, but Somalis do not generally support hardline views of Islam.

 

Many say they hate the warlords after 15 years of being robbed and terrorized by their fighters.

 

The Islamic courts have used sharia law to provide a semblance of order in the city of 1 million, where a power vacuum has fueled endemic violence for the last 15 years.

 

Mohamed said the warlords had thrown 100 new gunmen into the battle overnight. A spokesman for the warlord alliance, Hussein Gutale Rage, denied this but confirmed fighting had continued through the night.

 

Interim government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari condemned the killings and said the clashes could spill into other neighborhoods.

 

"It's now street battles, but if it continues unabated more areas will be affected," he told Reuters from Baidoa, where the interim government is based but is powerless to control the warlords.

 

Residents say neither side has gained the upper hand in heavy fighting that underlines the anarchy that has gripped Somalia since warlords ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 before turning against each other.

 

President Abdullahi Yusuf's fractious fledgling government has lacked the authority or resources to make a difference to the lives of ordinary Somalis since it was formed in 2004 and is too weak to return to Mogadishu.

 

Undermined by an internal split over where the administration should be based, Yusuf's government includes some Mogadishu warlords and some allies of the Islamic courts.

 

Influential Somali Islamist Sheik Dahir Aweys, whose name appears on a U.S. list of most wanted terrorists, has accused Washington of backing the warlords to avenge the killing of American soldiers in Mogadishu in the 1990s during a U.N. peacekeeping mission that ended in humiliation.

 

U.N. monitors said in a report to the Security Council on Wednesday that they were investigating an unnamed country's violation of an arms embargo through clandestine support for the warlord "Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism."

 

Although the monitors did not identify the country, Yusuf has named the United States as the warlords' backer. Influential Somali Islamist Sheik Dahir Aweys, whose name appears on a U.S. list of most wanted terrorists, has accused Washington of backing the warlords to avenge the killing of American soldiers in Mogadishu in the 1990s during a U.N. peacekeeping mission that ended in humiliation.

(Reporting by Guled Mohamed in Nairobi)

[Che -Guevara]

Correction...Utter nonsense my man...Somali Men are killing Somali children. Don't blame the Yankees for our indiffirence and outright stup-idity.

[QabiilDiid]

US support for Somali warlords may violate UN arms embargo

 

By Matthew Lee 1 hour, 3 minutes ago

 

NAIROBI (AFP) - Covert United States support for an alliance of Somali warlords now fighting Islamic militias for control of Mogadishu may violate a 14-year-old United Nations arms embargo, diplomats said.

 

As the two factions clashed for a fifth straight day on the streets of the capital, provoking international concern about rising violence, the diplomats said Washington's backing of the warlord alliance was legally questionable.

 

The comments came a day after a panel of experts monitoring the 1992 arms embargo on Somalia told the UN Security Council it was investigating clandestine "financial support" to the alliance from an unnamed country.

 

Washington has not publicly confirmed its support for the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) but US officials and informed Somali sources have told AFP the group has received US money.

 

The cash, amounting to several hundred thousand dollars, was delivered by former US military and intelligence officials on at least two occasions to Mogadishu warlords in January and February, sources in Somalia told AFP.

 

The ARPCT was formed shortly after the second injection of US funds, in a bid to curb the growing influence of Mogadishu's 11 Islamic courts. Some believe the courts are protecting Muslim extremists, including Al-Qaeda operatives.

 

Although US officials say Washington has not supplied the warlord alliance with weapons or military equipment, diplomats said the money could be a breach of the embargo.

 

"Money is fungible (mutually interchangeable)," one Nairobi-based diplomat told AFP. "It may not be weapons coming in by ship or truck but if the cash is going to buy military equipment that would be a violation."

 

"It's all about how the money is used and the intent of the donor," said a second. "Funding the alliance was always a risk for stability but it may have been illegal."

 

The US program is controversial -- not least because of Washington's disastrous military intervention in Somalia in the early 1990s -- and Somalia's fledgling and largely powerless transition government has complained about it.

 

The government, which argues the US support is fuelling divisions, has long sought the lifting of the arms embargo. But it wants it removed so it can build up its own security forces.

 

The Security Council has several times rejected the government's request.

 

The embargo was imposed shortly after Somalia descended into anarchy with the 1991 ousting of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre. But it has been widely ignored by many countries seeking to back competing warlords in the country.

 

In its report to the Security Council, the UN monitoring group said "a widening circle of states are providing arms and military-related support to Somalia in violation of the arms embargo".

 

The panel identified six nations -- Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Italy, Saudi Arabia and Yemen -- believed to have violated the embargo since December 2005 but made pointed reference to "clandestine" involvement by another country.

 

"The Monitoring Group was informed that during January and February 2006, and at other times not specified ... financial support was being provided to help organize and structure a militia force created to counter the threat posed by the growing militant fundamentalist movement in central and southern Somalia," it said.

 

"The Monitoring Group did not specify third-country involvement because at the time of the writing of the present report it had not completed its investigation," it said.

 

Although the panel did not name the country, the timing of the support detailed in the report coincides with the deliveries of US funds mentioned to AFP by Somali sources.

 

The US embassy in Nairobi, which US officials say is coordinating the covert support for the warlord alliance, declined to comment and referred questions to Washington.

 

Last week, the US State Department acknowledged the United States was working with "responsible individuals" in Somalia to prevent "terror taking root in the Horn of Africa" but declined to specify who its partners were.

 

Source: AFP, May 11, 2006

 

Source

[General Duke]

The warlords will lose....Insha Allah.

[Wiilo]

Shaki kuma jiro in warlords-ka ku guul daraysanayaan arinkan ay wadaan, waxaase naxdin ah in the process dadka ku dhimanaya kuna dhaawacmaya.....

[QabiilDiid]

Jendayi-Frazer, Kuxigeenadda Xoghayaha arimaha dibadda Mareykanka , una qeybsan arimaha afrika

 

Kuxigeenadda Xoghayaha arimaha dibadda Mareykanka , una qeybsan arimaha afrika Jendayi Frazer ayaa waxa ay sheegay in Xukuumadda Washington ay taageereyso dhamaan kooxaha isku dayaya inay ka hortagaan in Soomaaliya ay noqoto hooy argagaxiso, waxaana ay qirtay inay walaac ka qabaan isbadalada ka soo cusboonaanaya dalka Soomaaliya .

 

Jendayi Frazer oo maanta Saxaafadda kula hadleysay Magaalada New York ayaa waxa ay xustay sida cad ay u garab taagan yihiin Isbaheysiga soo celinta Nabadda iyo dagaalanka argagaxisada oo Soomaaliya lagaga dhawaaqay 18-kii February ee sanadkan .

 

Kuxigeenadda Xoghayaha arimaha dibadda Mareykanka , una qeybsan arimaha afrika ayaa waxa ay intaasi ku dartay in siyaasadaha dalkeeda ee ku wajahan Soomaaliya ay tahay wax iska muuqda oo aan mugdi ku jirin , waxa ayna ku celcelisay inay la shaqeyn doonaan Isbaheysiga Hogaamiyaasha Muqdisho si ay uga takhalusaan Alqaacida , una noqdo dalka Soomaaliya goob nabdoon oo aaney hiigsan Karin argagaxisada .

 

Jendayi waxa ay sheegtay in talaabadaasi ay tahay mid u qaadeen si muwaadiniinta Mareykanka ay uga nabad galaan halis kaga imaata dhinaca Soomaaliya .

 

Todobaadyo ka hor ayey aheyd Markii Ku xigeenada arimaha dibadda Mareykanka arimaha afrika ay sheegtay inay Soomaaliya ka sameysanayaan Maleeshiyooyin la dagaalama Firdhadka Alqaacida ee saldhigan kara Soomaaliya hadii aanu Caalamka ka hortagin dhacdooyinka cabsida leh ee laga Maqlo Caasimadda.

 

 

Shabelle Media Network, USA