Mortars hit airport as peacekeepers arrive in Somalia

The first peacekeepers to arrive in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu in more than 10 years were met with a surge of violence today, as mortars hit the airport during a welcoming ceremony and a deadly gunbattle broke out on the city’s crumbling streets.

The street battles involving masked gunmen killed three people and mortars wounded one, all of them civilians, witnesses and police said.

The violence is the latest example of the volatility peacekeepers face in a country that has seen little more than anarchy for years, and where the government backed by Ethiopian troops toppled an Islamic militia only months ago.

“I saw around 100 gunmen engaging in a fierce battle. They used heavy machine guns and rocket propelled grenades,” Hassan Abukar Sidow, a Mogadishu resident, said.

He said the fighting began after police went house-to-house looking for suspects in the attack on the airport.

The bloodshed came as about 400 Ugandan peacekeepers arrived in the capital to protect the Somali government and to allow for the withdrawal of troops from neighbouring Ethiopia, which helped the administration topple a radical Islamic militia that controlled much of southern Somalia for six months.

The Ugandan troops are the vanguard of a larger African Union force authorised by the United Nations to help the government assert its authority in one of the most violent and gun-infested cities in the world.

Peacekeepers have kept clear of Mogadishu for more than a decade, while much of the country was ruled by violence and clan law. The US sent troops in 1992 as part of a UN relief operation for tens of thousands of starving civilians, but in 1993 clan militiamen shot down two Black Hawk helicopters and killed 18 American soldiers.

US forces withdrew in 1994 and the UN peacekeeping operation in Somalia was eventually abandoned in 1995.

Uganda’s Deputy Defence Minister Ruth Nankabirwa said the peacekeepers understand the dangers of working in Somalia.

“We have not just dropped our troops there without knowing the situation,” Nankabirwa said in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. “We will be the first people to make sure that they are safe so they can carry on to other missions.”

Insurgents believed to be the remnants of Somalia’s Council of Islamic Courts have staged almost daily attacks against the government, its armed forces or the Ethiopian military. On Tuesday, gunmen launched eight mortars at the airport during a ceremony to welcome the Ugandans. Two shells hit the airport; the others dropped to the sea.

People attending the ceremony scattered at the sound of the first blast. Somalia’s deputy defense minister, Salad Ali Jelle, refused to comment afterward, saying officials were investigating.

In the ensuing gunbattle, masked gunmen travelling in vans fought Somali and Ethiopian troops looking for suspects.

“The gunmen reminded me of the insurgents in Iraq, especially the way they covered their faces and carried the RPG on the shoulders,” said resident Salah Yabarow Wardhere.

Just hours earlier, overnight, gunmen killed seven people, including a police commander and a leading cleric, government officials and witnesses said. The police commander and another officer were ambushed at a major intersection, said Mohamud Burale Coon, a tea shop owner.

Maslah Mohamed Abdi said his brother, who was the top cleric in one of Mogadishu’s main mosques, was killed outside his home. The gunmen then killed four businessmen who were chewing qat, a mild stimulant, in their home, a neighbour said.

“The men stood at the door of a room ... and then opened fire,” Halima Hashi Adow said.

The cleric and the four men had been trying to hire gunmen to protect them, their homes and their neighbourhood. But the insurgents use the neighbourhood to launch mortar attacks on Ethiopian bases and did not want any private security forces in the area, residents said.

African Union Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit said the peacekeepers are allowed to defend themselves if attacked, but would not launch attacks on anyone.

“Our mission is to support all Somalis and the political process, which is based on dialogue and reconciliation,” Djinnit said in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

A Somali government spokesman, meanwhile, said local police are prepared to fight the insurgency and crime wave.

“Security is paramount for the country to attain a lasting peace, and law enforcement mechanisms such as the prisons and police force are now ready,” Hussein Mohamud Hussein, the spokesman, said.