Somalia’s hardline Islamist insurgent movement al Shabaab yesterday promised to carry out further attacks against African peacekeepers after the deadliest strike yet killed at least 11 soldiers from Burundi.
“This is our land and you are non-believers,” said a statement in Somali on a Web site used by the militants, who are fighting against the Somali government and a 3,500-strong African Union (AU) peacekeeping force.
“Leave us for your safety or we shall never tire of increasing your death toll,” the statement said.
The site posted photos of two young men it said were suicide bombers who detonated explosives in a jacket and a car next to an AU compound on Sunday in a former university of the Somalian capital Mogadishu.
The militants’ Internet statement said 52 people died and 34 were wounded in the attack.
A military source said the soldiers were killed when attackers drove a vehicle into their camp and exploded it as the troops were offloading supplies on Sunday.
“Up to now, we count 11 soldiers killed and 15 others wounded,” Colonel Adolphe Manirakiza said, adding that the wounded had been evacuated to Nairobi.
Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, and Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, the Western-educated son of a slain former president — were due in Mogadishu later yesterday. They have been in Djibouti to select a Cabinet under a UN-brokered process intended to form a unity government and end 18 years of conflict.
Their biggest threat is from al Shabaab, which along with allied militias controls large swathes of south Somalia, including the strategic towns of Baidoa and Kismayu.
The government controls only parts of Mogadishu.
Regional diplomats hope the inclusion of many moderate Islamists in the government will provide a new political dynamic that may marginalize hardliners like al Shabaab, which is on Washington’s list of terrorist groups.
In a statement, the Burundi government condemned the “barbaric attack against its contingent which deployed to this country in the interest of the Somali people and to seek peace.”
“Attacks by these evil forces will not deter Burundi or the African Union to help Somalis. We will reinforce our contingent with material and personnel,” the statement said.
The AU has also condemned the attack, the deadliest against the forces since their deployment, and said it will not deter its drive to help Somalia. The 3,400-strong AU force in Somalia is made up of Burundi and Ugandan troops.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all
NOTORIOUS JAIL: Even from a distance, prisoners maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger, could be distinguished Armed men broke the bolts on the cell and the prisoners crept out: haggard, bewildered and scarcely believing that their years of torment in Syria’s most brutal jail were over. “What has happened?” asked one prisoner after another. “You are free, come out. It is over,” cried the voice of a man filming them on his telephone. “Bashar has gone. We have crushed him.” The dramatic liberation of Saydnaya prison came hours after rebels took the nearby capital, Damascus, having sent former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fleeing after more than 13 years of civil war. In the video, dozens of
RSS