MOGADISHU (AFP) — Insurgents on Tuesday attacked a Mogadishu police station moments after an Islamist leader rubbished a truce deal between rival factions in Djibouti, dealing a blow to the latest UN effort to bring peace to Somalia.
Witnesses said insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns raided the station in the northern Karan district, allowing prisoners to run free, the latest in a series of attacks in the seaside capital.
“The bodies of two dead policemen could be seen strewn across the street near the station while prisoners were running away after being released. Some insurgents were shouting ‘God is Great’,” said Hasan Shikshigo, a grocer.
The insurgents briefly took control of the police station and a district commissioner’s residence, said Mohamed Sheik Muridi.
The violence came a day after Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein and Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) chief Sheikh Sharif Ahmed signed agreements at UN-sponsored talks in Djibouti, including a three-month truce which is to come into force within a month.
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, an influential radical cleric, has rejected the deal. The sheikh, accused of links to Al-Qaeda by the United States, argued it failed to set a clear deadline for the withdrawal from Somalia of Ethiopian troops.
“I do not believe that the outcome of this conference will have any impact on the resistance in Somalia. We shall continue fighting until we liberate our country from the enemies of Allah,” Aweys told Mogadishu-based Shabelle radio.
“The aim of the meeting was to derail the holy war in the country,” added Aweys, a member of the ARS, an opposition umbrella group dominated by Islamists and based in Eritrea.
Aweys and other hardline Islamists stayed away saying they would not take part unless Ethiopian troops backing government forces pulled out of Somalia.
According to the accord, Ethiopians Woyannes would withdraw after the UN deployed peacekeepers within 120 days of the armistice taking effect.
On May 15, the UN Security Council authorised a gradual return of UN staff to Somalia, possibly leading to the deployment of peacekeepers, but did not set a timetable.
Aweys said the new truce failed to set a deadline for the pullout of Ethiopian Woyanne troops, who deployed at the end of 2006 and knocked out Islamists from south and central Somalia. “It is not clear when they will leave,” he said.
The African Union (AU), the United States and UN chief Ban Ki-moon welcomed the agreement.
The AU “strongly urges all other relevant Somali actors to join this process and commit themselves to the peaceful and negotiated settlement of the conflict in their country,” the pan-African body said in a statement.
“We call on all Somali stakeholders, whether party to the agreement or not, to abide by its provisions and support its implementation,” US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.
The AU has deployed some 2,600 peacekeepers in Somalia — short of the pledged 8,000 troops — but they have failed to stem violence which rights groups say has killed 6,000 civilians over the past year.
Battle-weary Mogadishu residents said the absence of insurgents still keep peace at bay.
“Do not sponsor peace talks without participation of the Shababs, otherwise it is like playing a tune that has no listeners,” said Abdi Ali Mohamed, a taxi driver. “There are still rough times and more bloodshed ahead. Peace is miles away.”
Since their ouster, the Islamists have waged a guerrilla war, which according to international rights groups and aid agencies has left at least 6,000 civilians dead and displaced hundreds of thousands.
An uninterrupted civil war has plagued Somalia since the 1991 overthrow of president Mohamed Siad Barre, defying numerous peace initiatives and truce deals.
On Monday, the Somali rivals also agreed to facilitate the passage of humanitarian supplies to around 2.6 million suffering Somalis, although a similar pledge on May 16 went unheeded.
The UN expects the figure to reach 3.5 million Somalis by year’s end due to a prolonged drought and spiralling inflation.