Somali insurgents say they will fight foreign troops

June 21, 2009 (MOGADISHU) — Somali Islamist insurgents said they would fight any foreign troops that could intervene in the country after calls made by the embattled government yesterday.

Somali parliament speaker Sheikh Aden Mohamed on Saturday admitted that the government is weakened by the Islamist insurgency. He further called upon neighboring countries such as Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia to send military help to ward off a raging rebellion.

“We are sending our clear warning to the neighboring countries…. Send your troops to our holy soil if you need to take them back inside coffins,” Al Shebab’s spokesperson Ali Mohamud Rage said in a press conference held on Sunday.

“We tell our enemy that we do not fear any invasion from outside. We forced Ethiopia to withdraw from Somalia early this year and we shall do the same again,” he further said.

Hardline Islamist insurgents, on an offensive since May 7 to oust a UN-backed transitional government led by moderate Islamist Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, have stepped up attacks in the past week.

Three top officials have been killed in recent days, including a lawmaker, Mogadishu’s top police commander and a minister who died in a suicide bombing.

Ethiopia, which had troops in Somalia for two years but withdrew them in January, said on Saturday it would only send troops in help under a mandate from the international community.

But residents close to the border with Ethiopia say their neighbour already has troops in their country.

There are 4300 African Union peacekeepers in Somali to protect the UN backed government but they are under constant attack by the hard-line Islamists who ask for their departure.

About 300 people most of them civilians have been killed since May 7, in fighting residents say is the worst for years. Also some 125,000 people are displaced as result of the fighting in the different parts of the country.

(ST)