MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Hundreds of Islamic insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-guns briefly seized control of a central Somali town after government soldiers abandoned their post, residents said Thursday. It is the seventh town they have taken in recent months although the fighters usually melt away after a few hours.
“The government soldiers left as soon as they heard Islamists are on their way,” said Mohamed Elmi Nor, a resident of Jalalaqsi town, 100 miles north of the capital.
The fighters entered the town in 10 pickups on Wednesday night, some covering their faces with red turbans, he said by telephone. They seized a police truck and left without shooting anyone.
Elsewhere, two body guards of a government official were killed and eight others wounded when insurgents attacked Abdifatah Mohamed Gesey, the governor of Bay region in southwestern Somalia. Gesey was on an official visit in Qansah Dhere town, some 205 miles from the capital,when the attack occurred.
Gesey said, “Islamists … wanted to kill me but my guard gallantly succeeded in repelling them.”
Besides hit-and-run attacks on outlying towns, the fighters launch near-daily attacks on government and Ethiopian forces in the capital. They are linked to the Council of Islamic Courts, an Islamic group that was driven out in December 2006 by Somalia’s weak Western-backed government and its Ethiopian Woyanne allies.
In an unrelated incident, the U.N. envoy to Somalia says his organization has been in contact with gunmen believed to have kidnapped a Briton and a Kenyan doing contract work for the United Nations in southern Somalia on Tuesday.
“There are contacts to see how to free these people,” said Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the U.N. envoy to Somalia, speaking to journalists in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. He said the U.N. will not pay a ransom and are not discussing a ransom with the suspected kidnappers. He declined to give any other details.
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