Bloomberg
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
"The offensive has not yet occurred as intended," Sheikh Sharif told reporters yesterday at the presidential palace in the city. "There are ongoing concrete plans to clear out al- Shabaab from Mogadishu."
Most of southern and central Somalia has been seized by al- Shabaab since it began a campaign against the Western-backed government in 2007, while President Sheikh Sharif's administration controls only parts of Mogadishu, backed by African Union peacekeepers. The U.S. accuses al-Shabaab of having links to al-Qaeda.
Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansor, a leader of al-Shabaab, said today the government offensive has failed because of division within government ranks, pointing to a dispute between Sheikh Sharif and the speaker of parliament over the extension of parliament's mandate.
Somali lawmakers announced earlier this month that they would extend parliament's mandate, which ends in August, for three more years, even after the government failed to enact a new constitution or organize elections. Sheikh Sharif has called for a review of the extension, while Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adam has said lawmakers won't reverse the decision, Shabelle Media Network, a Mogadishu-based news agency, reported yesterday.
'Apostate Government'
"The fighting from the apostate government and mercenary African troops has failed because both the top officers of the apostate government are in dispute," Mansor said in remarks broadcast today on Mogadishu-based Radio Furgan. Mansor spoke to villagers in Tulo Barwaaqo, in the Gedo region near the border with Kenya and Ethiopia.
Mansor also said al-Shabaab fighters have been defending themselves in the region against attacks by Kenyan and Ethiopian forces.
The Kenya Red Cross Society said yesterday that fighting between al-Shabaab militants and fighters allied with Somalia's government erupted on Feb. 25 near the northeastern Kenyan town of Mandera, close to the borders of Somalia and Ethiopia. Residents are hiding indoors and at least 400 refugees have registered with the organization to receive emergency aid, the organization said.
Kenya has a battalion of its forces in Mandera that patrol the border area, government spokesman Alfred Mutua said in an interview today from Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.
"There is fighting at the border, mostly on the Somali side," he said. "We have our troops there to make sure that the fighting does not spill over into the Kenyan area."
Mutua said Kenya doesn't have any plans to send any troops into Somalia to combat the insurgents.
Somalia hasn't had a functioning central administration since the ouster of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.