Armed Al-Shabaab fighters patrol Bakara Market, in Mogadishu, Somalia, Monday, June 29, 2009. Somali radical Islamic insurgent says weapons and ammunition the United States recently supplied to Somalia's embattled government will only increase violence in the war-wracked country. Sheik Hassan Ya'qub, a spokesman for the militant group al-Shabab in the port town of Kismayo, was responding to an announcement by U.S. officials last week that the Obama administration had supplied arms and provided military training worth just under $10 million to the shaky official government. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)) (Farah Abdi Warsameh - AP)
MOGADISHU, Somalia — A Somali radical Islamic insurgent says weapons and ammunition the United States recently supplied to Somalia’s embattled government will only increase violence in the war-wracked country.
Sheik Hassan Ya’qub, a spokesman for the militant group al-Shabab in the port town of Kismayo, was responding to an announcement by U.S. officials last week that the Obama administration had supplied arms and provided military training worth just under $10 million to the shaky official government.
“The weapons sent to the so-called government will only escalate violence in Somalia and we, the holy warriors, believe that we will eventually seize them,” said Ya’qub.
Over the past two months, President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed’s government has been come under heavy on-off attacks from Islamic insurgents pounding government positions with mortars and targeting senior officials in suicide attacks. During an intense two-week period of fighting in the capital in May about 200 civilians were killed.
It is unclear how al-Shabab, an extremist Islamic group fighting to overthrow the government, will follow through on its threat to seize the arms. U.S. officials said last week the arms were supplied through the African Union force in the Somali capital, which has firm control of Mogadishu’s main air and sea port even though Al-Shabab controls other parts of Mogadishu.
Armed Al-Shabaab fighters patrol Bakara Market in Mogadishu, Somalia, Monday, June 29, 2009. Somali radical Islamic insurgent says weapons and ammunition the United States recently supplied to Somalia's embattled government will only increase violence in the war-wracked country. Sheik Hassan Ya'qub, a spokesman for the militant group al-Shabab in the port town of Kismayo, was responding to an announcement by U.S. officials last week that the Obama administration had supplied arms and provided military training worth just under $10 million to the shaky official government. (AP Photo/Mohamed Sheikh Nor) (Mohamed Sheikh Nor - AP)
The U.S. considers al-Shabab a terrorist group with links to al-Qaida, which al-Shabab denies. The group, which controls much of southern Somalia, is trying to drive out the government and install a strict form of Islam.
In May, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development – a group of seven countries in the Horn of Africa region that has led past peace talks on Somalia – imposed a sea and air blockade to stop military supplies reaching the Islamic insurgents in Somalia. It is not clear whether the blockade is effective.
There has been a U.N. arms embargo on Somalia since 1992, but it is regularly violated. The U.N. amended the embargo in 2006 to allow the deployment of an African Union force in Somalia without violating international law.
Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991 when the overthrow of a dictatorship plunged the country into chaos.
Source: Washington Post
