Somalia - Civil War / Piracy

(28 Sep 2008) On August 3rd an explosion killed at least 20 people in the Somali capital, according to witnesses and a hospital official, as the government struggles with a political crisis that has threatened its peace deal with elements of an Islamic insurgency. An eyewitness said a bomb hidden under a pile of garbage exploded on a main road and 15 people were killed, including 10 women street cleaners. The Medina hospital admitted 47 wounded people but five of them died, the hospital head said. Those deaths would have brought the death toll to 20. The explosion followed last month's peace agreement, which has fuelled power struggles within both the transitional government and the Islamic insurgency it is fighting.
On September 3rd mortar shells slammed into Somalia's capital as insurgents vowed to intensify attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Somalia already sees near-daily explosions of bloodshed, and thousands of Somalis - most of them civilians - have been killed since Islamic fighters began an Iraq-style insurgency in December 2006, after they were driven from power in Mogadishu and much of the south. At least four people were killed said several witnesses who reported seeing the dead in two different neighbourhoods of southern Mogadishu.
On September 22nd heavy bombardment od the Somali capitalkilled 30 people and injured at least sixty when insurgents fought government forces and their Ethiopian allies, firing mortar rounds and gunfire. The fighting began after Islamic insurgents fired mortars at the capital's main airport and the presidential palace, a local official told Associated Press. Soon after, government forces and their Ethiopian allies retaliated with mortars and gunfire. Among the dead in the attacks were seven members of one family, a mother, grandmother, four children and an uncle, when a mortar round landed near their home. The one survivor was a two-year-old boy who escaped with minor injuries. The African Union has sent about two-thousand peacekeepers to Somalia, but they generally are confined to the airport because security is so bad in Mogadishu.
In September pirates seized the Ukrainian-operated ship Faina off the coast of Somalia as it headed to Kenya carrying 33 Russian-built T-72 tanks and a substantial quantity of ammunition and spare parts. The ordinance was ordered by the Kenyan government. As a heavily armed US freighter patrolled nearby and planes flew overhead, a Somali pirate spokesman told The Associated Press his group was demanding a 20 million (m) US dollar ransom to release a cargo ship loaded with Russian tanks. The spokesman also warned that the pirates would fight to the death if any country tried military action to regain the ship, and a man who said he was the ship's captain reported that one crew member had died. Pictures released by the US Navy showed Somali pirates in small boats seen alongside the Faina. The USS Howard was stationed off the coast of Somalia, making sure that the pirates did not remove the tanks, ammunition and other heavy weapons from the ship.
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