Somali attack raises fears of return to clan violence

SOMALIA: Somali gunmen attacked an oil tanker truck near Mogadishu yesterday, wounding three people and raising fears of a return…

SOMALIA:Somali gunmen attacked an oil tanker truck near Mogadishu yesterday, wounding three people and raising fears of a return to the clan violence that had largely stopped during six months of Islamist rule.

The Somalia Islamic Courts Council, which had imposed sharia law across much of the south, abandoned the capital last week to government troops backed by Ethiopian forces.

Within hours of the Islamists' departure, militiamen loyal to warlords ousted in June reappeared at checkpoints in the city where they used to rob, rape and murder civilians.

"The militias fired three RPGs [ rocket-propelled grenades]. One of them hit us," the truck driver, who gave his name as Tusbah, said at the scene, where the charred wreckage of his vehicle lay strewn across a sandy road.

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"They were bandits who wanted money."

Dozens of passengers riding on top of the truck fled as the gunmen fired automatic rifles before launching grenades.

The attack in Galgalato, 25km (15 miles) north of the city centre, came on the last day of a three-day government ultimatum for Mogadishu residents and militia to turn in their guns.

Few have been turned in.

"I have an AK-47 [ Kalashnikov rifle] and a pistol in my house. I will not surrender them because I do not see any trustworthy person to give them to," said one resident, who declined to be named. "People have started burying their weapons. Others have transported their heavy weapons outside Mogadishu."

Deputy defence minister Salad Ali Jelle said forcible disarmament would begin at the weekend.

The Somali government wants a foreign peacekeeping force - approved by the United Nations before the war - to be deployed.

Uganda has provisionally offered a battalion, and its president, Yoweri Museveni, was meeting his Ethiopian counterpart Meles Zenawi in Addis Ababa yesterday.

US assistant secretary of state for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer was also in Addis Ababa and was due to co-host a meeting in Nairobi today to discuss Somalia. - (Reuters)