By Guled Mohamed
Thursday, June 28, 2007
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MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed two soldiers in Somalia's chaotic capital Mogadishu on Thursday, witnesses said, just hours after two aid workers were shot dead in an overnight attack in the north of the country.One woman at the scene of the blast said a vehicle carrying troops through a northern district of the city was lifted into the air by the powerful explosion. The troops on another truck in the convoy opened fire, she said.
"I saw two dead soldiers," said another witness, Halimo Hussein, selling livestock feed at a nearby junction. It was not immediately clear if the dead troops were from the Somali interim government forces or their Ethiopian military allies.
Four civilians were wounded in the blast, which was the latest in a wave of guerrilla strikes in the Horn of Africa nation blamed on an ousted hardline Islamist movement.
In separate violence, two Somalis working for the International Medical Corps relief agency were killed late on Wednesday in El-Berde, 480km (300 miles) northwest of Mogadishu.
"One died instantly while the other died on his way to hospital," resident Adan Hussein said by telephone. "This is the first attack on aid workers here. It's worrying us."
The interim government -- the 14th attempt to set up central rule in Somalia -- is struggling to impose its authority.
On Thursday, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said more than 3,500 people fled Mogadishu in June amid escalating violence.
Meanwhile, only 123,000 of an estimated 401,000 civilians who fled heavy fighting in the city between February and May have returned, it said in a statement. In another major displacement, it said, some 10,000 people have fled fighting between rival clans in and around the southern port of Kismayu.
In Ethiopia, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said the activity of "terrorists" in Somalia -- whom he accused rival Eritrea of backing -- had forced him to revise his military exit strategy.
"Our defence forces had no option but to slow down their process of withdrawal which, if allowed to continue, would have led to a complete reversal of the victory achieved," he said.
Ethiopia's withdrawal now depended on the success of a planned national reconciliation conference, he told Ethiopia's parliament, the "consolidation" of the Somali government and the "full deployment" of African Union (AU) peacekeepers.
Only 1,600 Ugandan soldiers have gone to Mogadishu so far, though the AU wants to deploy an 8,000-strong force. (Additional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa).
Source: Reuters, June 28, 2007