|
Mogadishu, (insidesomalia.org) - The interim President of Somalia, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, landed at the international airport in the capital Mogadishu Saturday morning as insurgents targeted the capital's main seaport with mortars.
Major roads linking Adan Adde International Airport and the presidential palace Villa Somalia were all shut off by Somali and Ethiopian troops, witnesses said.
Mogadishu Mayor Mohamed Dheere and intelligence boss Mohamed Darwish were among senior government officials welcoming the Somali leader at the airport.
President Yusuf did not address the media, but a spokesman told reporters he will speak with journalists very soon.
The Somali president went to London for medical treatment last month and made a brief stopover in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he held talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
Closed roads were later reopened after President Yusuf reached Villa Somalia safely.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Islamic Courts has claimed responsibility for six mortars that hit the Mogadishu seaport last night.
Abdirahim Ali Mudey said they targeted the seaport because a ship docked there brought weapons and other materials for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
He dismissed comments by an AMISOM spokesman, who told the BBC that the mortars were "launched from Bakara market."
"That claim is untrue…we launched the attack at a location very close to the port," Mudey said.
None of the AU peacekeepers were wounded in the attack, but five Somalis suffered injuries during the blasts, according to the AMISOM spokesman.
Mudey said AMISOM peacekeepers are "not different" from Ethiopian troops because both groups are "forcefully controlling the Somali people."
Somali fighters linked to the ousted Islamic Courts movement have spearheaded a bloody insurgency since January 2007 when Somali-Ethiopian troops captured Mogadishu.
More than 6,000 people have been killed since and half of Mogadishu's population displaced by the violence, according to the United Nations and human rights groups.
Somali government said has planned to have dialogue with the opposition groups including insurgents fighting government troops in the streets of Mogadishu.
Somalia's transitional government urged the Security Council on Friday to speed up its planning for the possible deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force to replace African Union troops in the war-wracked nation.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, sinking the poverty-stricken nation of 7 million into chaos. Its weak transitional government, backed by Ethiopian troops.
 |
News in English 
Subscribe to this comment's feed