Mogadishu/Nairobi - Ethiopian backed government troops
attempted to secure a hold on the turbulent Somali capital Mogadishu
Friday after more than a week of deadly violence, but chaos reigned
as looters took advantage of the deserted city.
The Coca-Cola factory in the city's north was among those
properties being ransacked, Somali news agency Shabelle reported, as
guns fell silent and Somalis began clearing away the corpses left
behind after the recent flare-up of fighting.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said government
troops were in control of the city after eight days of fighting
insurgents that left at least 300 dead in unsettling barrages from
both sides that often hit civilians.
The government called on the 365,000 people who had fled the city
since February to return to their homes, many of which were damaged
in the ongoing fighting.
A similar battle in April left up to 1,000 dead and sent scores
fleeing in some of the worst fighting in 15 years.
With the corpses lying decomposing in the streets, diseases taking
hold among the throngs of displaced and the constant fighting, the UN
has warned of a looming humanitarian catastrophe.
The government troops were using tanks and missiles to combat
rocket-toting militants - remnants of an ousted Islamist group which
ruled the capital for the last half of 2006.
The transitional government, the 14th attempt at cementing central
rule in Somalia, has struggled to assert its authority over the Horn
of Africa nation and a 1,500-member African Union (AU) peacekeeping
force deployed in Mogadishu has been unable to stem the bloodshed.
On a visit to the Ugandan capital Kampala Friday, AU chairman
Alpha Oumar Konare voiced his concern over the worsening situation in
Somalia and the AU's inability to muster the 8,000 troops it said
were required to secure the capital.
'We regret the incidents taking place in Somalia - the dead,
the displaced and wounded. I regret that we have not been able to get
our objective of securing Somalia,' Konare said at the end of his
two-day official visit.
He appealed for more troop contributions from the pan-African
organization's members, a few of which have promised peacekeepers but
only Uganda has delivered.
The once powerful Islamist group brought some stability to the
country, but that was disrupted by an Ethiopian-backed and US-
sanctioned incursion over the New Year, which ousted the Islamists
and installed the government.
In what looks increasingly like an Iraq-style insurgency, two
explosions shook Mogadishu and its environs this week, killing at
least seven in a car bomb and an unknown number in a suicide attack
on an Ethiopian military base.
Somalia has been without strong central rule since the 1991 ouster
of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre swept the country into anarchy and
warlord rule.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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