Al-Shabab Attacks Peacekeeping Hospital in Somalia

An explosion near a base for the African Union peacekeeping force near the Mogadishu airport has left at least five people killed, including one soldier Somali Islamist militant group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for an attack on a hospital run by the African Union peacekeeping force. The explosion occurred near the peacekeeping base, killing at least five, including one soldier.

Sheikh Ali Muhamud Rage, the spokesperson for al-Shabab, says that the rebel group successfully attacked the base of the African Union peacekeeping mission, known as AMISOM.

He claimed that the overnight bombing near the Mogadishu airport was in response to the deaths of innocent civilians caused by the AMISOM forces.

An AMISOM official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media, told VOA that three Somali patients and one Ugandan peacekeeper were killed in the blast. He added that eight were injured, half civilians and half soldiers.

Reports conflict as to whether the attack was executed through a suicide bomber or a mortar blast, and some place the casualty figure as high as seven dead.

AMISOM spokesperson Major Barigye Bahuko says that the detonation took place within the outpatient department of the hospital.

"It was not even an explosion; it was just a small blast," Bahuko said. "A blast that occurred where the Somalis were congregating waiting for treatment ended up by killing very many Somalis unfortunately."

Al-Shabab, a group thought to have links to al-Qaida, is waging an intense insurgency against the Western-backed Mogadishu government, propped up by the AU peacekeeping mission staffed with Ugandan and Burundian forces.

The rebels fight under an ultra-conservative Islamic ideology, imposing Sharia law under the territory they control and referring to their enemies as infidels. They now control most of southern and some of central Somalia, including much of Mogadishu.

The attempted Christmas-day attack on a U.S. airliner has increased the international attention given to the Horn of African Islamists. The Nigerian attacker was trained in nearby Yemen, and though no proven link exists between the two countries' respective Islamist rebellions, analysts are now expressing concern that the region could become the new front in the global fight against militant radical Islam.

In September al-Shabab claimed responsibility for twin suicide blasts within the AMISOM base disrupted a high-profile meeting between top peacekeeping brass and Somali government officials. The attack killed at least 17 people, including the top Burundian general stationed in the country.

Source:voanews.com/

Fighting in Somalia displaces 63,000 people

In just the past 19 days, an estimated 63,000 people have been displaced from their homes in Somalia by fighting involving government forces and militias, combined with "general insecurity," the United Nations' refugee agency said Tuesday.

Some 14,000 of that number were displaced "from and within" Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, in the past two weeks, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Roberta Russo said in a news release.

Fighting in the city on January 13 between government forces and members of the Al-Shabaab and Hisb-ul-Islam militias resulted in the death of at least 10 people, some of them children, she said.

In addition, the government-aligned Alu Sunna Wal Jamma militia battled Hisb-ul-Islam fighters around Belet Weyne in central Somalia on January 9, with reports of at least 30 civilians killed and 50 wounded, she said.

"Thousands of people have been forced to flee from their homes and an estimated 11,900 have temporarily settled around Belet Weyne in appalling conditions," Russo wrote.

There are already another 50,000 internally displaced people in the surrounding Hiraan region, bordering Ethiopia, she said.

The refugee agency also estimates that about 28,800 people have been displaced in the area around the town of Dhuusamareeb, in the Galgaduud region in central Somalia, and "are in urgent need of shelter, water and health care," she said.

Clashes between Alu Sunna Wal Jamma and Al-Shabaab have flared up again in recent days in the region, Russo said, referring to "sketchy reports" of 150 people killed and 80 wounded in the fighting.

"As the struggle for control of the territory continues, insecurity makes it extremely difficult for aid workers to access the area and deliver vital assistance," she wrote.

She did not specify where the other estimated 8,000 people were displaced from.

Somalia continues to be one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, with some 1.5 million internally displaced people and more than 560,000 people living as refugees in neighboring countries, the refugee agency says, mainly in Kenya (309,000), Yemen (163,000) and Ethiopia (59,000).

Source:edition.cnn.com/

Al-Shabaab Threatens to Attack Kenya

Theories have emerged that Jamaican cleric Abdullah Al-Faisal is still in Kenya hidden in un-known place, sources told Newstime Africa. On Thursday, a court in Kenya heard that the controversial cleric had been flown to his native country in a chartered Gulfstream jet. The preacher was due to be produced before court on Thursday morning but the judge in the case pushed the matter to 2.30pm. When the matter came up, the office of the Attorney General asked for about 20 minutes to verify his whereabouts and later informed the court that the cleric was outside Kenya borders. His lawyers have since demanded a detailed information and documentation on his deportation and the officials who accompanied him.


Al-Shabaab - Threatens to attack Kenya
Faisal was due to appear in the High Court on Thursday following a suit filed by a Kenyan Muslim rights group against both his detention and planned deportation. This was the third attempt to deport him in a one month. Tanzania authorities refused to have him in their country and later Nigerian refused to have him en-route Banjul, Gambia. Immigration Minister Otieno Kajwang Wednesday admitted that the government had been frustrated in its bid to deport him after the US threatened to ban any air line that attempts to fly him.

Senior government officials made contradicting remarks on his whereabouts and deportation. Government spokesman Alfred Mutua told reporters that Al-Faisal had left the country on Thursday morning. Muslim rights group officials insist Al-Faisal is still in the country. Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula had said earlier this week that the cleric would be out of the country by Thursday by any mean possible. Immigration Minister latter said the cleric was still in the country hours after a senior official had indicated that Al-Faisal was in a plane planned to re-fuel in Moscow headed to Jamaica.

The cleric was arrested in Mombasa, the heart of Muslim in Kenya on New Year eve at a local mosque. His passports indicate that he footed Kenya on December 9 through a Kenya-Tanzania border. A planned demo in Mombasa was on Thursday called off but a section of Muslim youths strongly hold that the protest will go on today after Friday prayers. Similar protests in Nairobi left at least 7 people dead and several injured as protestors clashed with police. Protester waved an Al-Shabaab associated flag.Over 1,000 hundred people including 16 legislatures, mainly of Somalia origin, have been arrested in the swoops across the country.

The Kenyan police crackdown followed a violent protest in Nairobi against the detention of Jamaican Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal. Most lacks United Nations High Commission for Refugees vetting documents. Immigration ministry told legislatures to registers as refugees if they want to enjoy peace in Kenya.Islamist official in Somalia have accused the Kenya troops of planning an invasion of territories under the group’s control, vowing to defend their “country” to the last drop of blood. “God willing we will arrive in Nairobi, we will enter Nairobi, God willing we will enter … will hit, hit until we kill, weapons we have, praise be to God, they are enough,” goes a recorded song posted on Al-Shabaab website.

Al-Shabaab militants recently captured the Lower Jubba region in southern Somalia from Hizbul Islam, their former allies. Witnesses say Kenya has deployed more troops near a Kenya-Somalia border town, Dhobley where militants have taken control. An administrator at the region told reporters that Kenya has provoked the militants by sending troops there. Confrontation is feared between the two groups. Al-Faisal was deported from Britain in 2007 for preaching hatred and urging his followers to kill Jews, Hindus and Westerners.

Source:newstimeafrica.com/