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by Ali Musa Abdi and Mustafa Haji Abdinur
20 January 2007
MOGADISHU (AFP) - Heavy armed exchanges erupted around the residence of interim Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed in Mogadishu after a mortar attack exposed the rampant insecurity in the capital.
At least eight mortar shells were fired at the Villa Somalia in southern Mogadishu before Ethiopian troops, who recently helped Yusuf's regime hardline Islamists from Mogadishu, rushed to engage in a firefight with the assailants.
The violence, the most spectacular since Yusuf took up residence in Mogadishu 11 days ago, came as the African Union debated plans for a stabilisation force to the country which has been a byword for anarchy for the last 16 years.
Although the identity of the attackers was not immediately known, the Islamists have vowed to wage a campaign of guerrilla warfare against Yusuf's regime and their Ethiopian allies.
Residents in the southern Bonbhere neighbourhood said the mortar attack had caught security guards guarding the Villa Somalia unawares.
"I saw two minibuses full of gunmen passing in front of my shop and ordered all the power (electricity) to be shut down," said Mohamed Deeq.
"After about 15 minutes we heard very heavy explosions."
Ethiopian troops could be seen aboard tanks and armoured vehicles rushing to the scene where they fired towards the source of the attack.
"Government soldiers as well as Ethiopian troops returned fire towards the area where they thought the attack came from," said another witness, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They also opened fire with machine-guns."
There were no immediate reports of casualties from the scene where Yusuf only recently took up residence. It was not known whether Yusuf was in the building at the time.
His interim administration had been based in the provincial town of Baidoa, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu, until the ouster of the Islamists at the end of last month.
Hours earlier, a government spokesman had expressed satisfaction at efforts to rid the city of weapons after warlords who have reached a disarmament agreement with Yusuf began handing in weaponry.
At least 70 armoured vehicles, around 120 mortars and a tank had been handed over within the first week of the accord, said spokesman Abdirahman Dinari.
"We have begun at a steady pace and people are pleased with the government's work towards the disarmament," he told AFP.
However the numbers handed in represents only a fraction of the weaponry still in the city on the shores of the Indian Ocean.
The interim government remains heavily dependent on outside help if it wants the city to banish its reputation for anarchy and warlordism.
A long talked-of peacekeeping mission was once more under debate at the African Union's base in Addis Ababa.
But the reluctance of countries to become bogged down in what Eritrea has described as a potential "quagmire" has cast doubt over the chances of the force being deployed by the month's end as planned.
The proposal under discussion by the AU's Peace and Security Commission was to send nine battalions of 850 troops each to Somalia for an initial period of six months.
The force should later assume a United Nations mandate which would work towards long-term reconstruction in the country, said a report drawn up by an AU fact-finding team.
However, the 15-member body appeared split over exactly when the force would be deployed with politicians arguing for troops to go before the end of the month but military experts recommending a later date, officials said.
Only Uganda has thus far publicly offered troops, with lawmakers from its ruling party endorsing the deployment of one battalion late Thursday.
But Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, just back from an African tour to lobby support for the mission, said Nigeria and Libya were willing to send troops and Algeria was also ready to assist.
Source: AFP