Sunday, December 07, 2008
MOGADISHU, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- Ten people have been killed and nearly 16 others wounded in separate violent incidents in southern Somalia as an insurgent group announced formation of an Islamic administration in Merka, a southern port town, local media reports said Saturday.
Fighters of the Islamist Al-Shabaab insurgent group clashed with militias of an Ethiopian rebel movement, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), which they said has bases in Dobley, a southern town at the Somali border with Kenya, near the Al-Shabaab stronghold of Kismayu.
Seven ONLF fighters have been killed while six others were wounded in the gunfight that lasted for several hours, spokesman for Al-Shabaab told local radios in Mogadishu.
Al-Shabaab commanders were against the Ethiopian rebel group which they see as a secular movement having bases close to the group's stronghold. The ONLF, which fights for self-determination for Somali-speaking people in Ethiopia, said it was not involved and accused Al-Shabaab of killing "local nomads."
Abdirahman Mahdi, ONLF's so-called "Foreign Secretary" told local Shabelle radio that his movement has never had bases inside Somalia.
Meanwhile, in the southern Somali town of Baidoa, unknown assailants threw grenades at Somali government police at a local market, killing three.
Witnesses said that the police opened fire at the attackers. Nearly nine bystanders were wounded in the explosion and the gunfire.
Reports from the town, which is the seat of the transitional parliament, say that police have arrested eight people in connection for the grenade attack.
In the southern port town of Merka, provincial capital of Lower Shabelle province, the Islamist Al-Shabaab movement, which controls the town, has set up "an Islamic administration" for the town which has been under their control since November.
Spokesman for the group, Sheik Muqtar Robow Abu Mansoor, told local residents in announcing the administration that it would serve the people and work to reconcile between them.
"The new administration will implement the (Islamic) Sharia Lawand will govern justly in the interest of the people in this town," Abu Mansoor said.
Al-Shabaab controls a number of key towns and cities in southern Somalia and has formed similar administrations which implement strict Islamic Sharia law.