Somali Islamists call for terror attacks on Uganda and Burundi

A woman is assisted after being wounded following shelling in Somalia's main Bakara Market in Mogadishu October 22, 2009. Artillery battles between Islamist insurgents, Somali government forces and African Union (AU) peacekeepers killed at least 30 people in the capital Mogadishu on Thursday, residents and medical workers said.


"Children of mothers" killed in recent mortar battles in Mogadishu "must divert the war from Mogadishu", a senior representative of the al-Shabaab group said.

The worst fighting in a month rocked Somalia's seaside capital on Thursday, killing at least 21 people.

Rockets fired by Ugandan or Burundian African Union soldiers killed civilians during the bombardment, according to Sheikh Ali Mohamed Hussein, Mogadishu commander for the Islamist insurgents.

"It was difficult to differentiate who is who among the bodies of mothers killed by the bombardment of Ugandan and Burundi troops," he told reporters late on Thursday.

A Somali Islamic militant cleans his weapon at a base in southern Mogadishu October, 23, 2009. Somalia's hardline al Shabaab insurgents said they will strike the capitals of Burundi and Uganda in revenge for rocket attacks by peacekeepers from those countries that killed at least 30 people in Mogadishu.



"We shall attack Bujumbura and Kampala [capitals of Burundi and Uganda]. We will move our fighting to those two cities and we shall destroy them."

A spokesman for the African Union peacekeepers in Somalia denied that their mission had fired any mortars and accused al-Shabaab of trying to "drag us into their war".

Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, promised swift action if there was evidence any terror raid was being planned in his country.

"These terrorists, I would advise them to concentrate on their own problems. If they attack us, they will pay because we know how to attack those who attack us," he told reporters.

"If they want power they can get power by people voting for them. If they attack us they will get the punishment they are hoping for."

Intelligence sources questioned whether the organisation, which Washington says has links to Osama bin Laden's terror network, had the ability to export its fight so far from Somalia.

"There is the possibility that someone sympathetic to al-Shabaab already living in Uganda, at a push even Burundi, could independently react to this," said one Western diplomat in Nairobi.

Somalis look at the bodies of two insurgents in Mogadishu Monday Oct. 19, 2009. At least three insurgents were killed during Sunday fighting in the Somali capital between the Government forces backed by African Union peacekeepers and the insurgents.


"But it's stretching it a bit far to imagine someone jumping on a plane from Mogadishu to go and carry out something drastic in either place." Al-Shabaab controls large stretches of southern and central Somalia, and most of the capital. It has been fighting the Western-backed transitional government for more than two years.

Since then, more than 19,000 civilians have been killed in the violence and 1.5 million have been driven from their homes.

Telegraph