The UN Security Council has rejected proposals on imposing
sanctions and tighter arms embargo on Somalia despite escalating
violence in the chaotic nation.
The recommendations came from one of the council's own
committees, which said that warlords in Somalia often violated the
current arms embargo and have become rich by selling fishing
licenses and exporting charcoal.
The fighting has escalated steadily in the African country since
Sunday, when the extremists, which have alleged ties to al-Qaida,
and the warlords, linked to the US, took up strategic positions in
Mogadishu, the Somali capital. At least 96 people have been killed
in Mogadishu in the last four days.
Most victims have been civilians. Nearly 200 people have been
wounded in the fighting, doctors said.
The UN secretary general's special representative for Somalia,
Francois Lonseny Fall, issued a statement appealing for "leaders on
both sides to step back from the brink and reconsider the damage
they are inflicting on the population."
"Whatever the allegiances, the intermittent conflict between
heavily armed camps has resulted in indiscriminate loss of life and
has created fear and chaos for those civilians trapped in the
crossfire," he said. "The indiscriminate use of heavy machine guns,
mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and artillery in and between
urban areas is unacceptable."
Islamic Court Union chairman Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed had said
his group would observe a cease-fire from late Tuesday, but it
never took hold.
Abdulahi Shir'wa, a civil leader, said neutral groups were
trying to meet with the two militias to negotiate another
cease-fire, without success.
Nuur Daqle, one of the alliance's commanders, said he was ready
to observe a cease-fire and had been told that the Islamic court
militias were also ready to stop fighting, but that so far, he had
seen no let up in the battle.
"We are ready to cease fire, but the so-called Islamic courts
are unreliable, they are offering, but keep on shooting at us," he
said.
A spokesman for the courts could not be immediately reached from
comment.
Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi also called on all sides to stop
fighting from his government's headquarters in Baidoa, 150 miles
west of Mogadishu. Although his government has UN backing, it has
so far failed to assert itself outside of Baidoa.
Somalia has had no effective central government since 1991, when
warlords ousted longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and turned on
each other, carving this nation of an estimated 8 million people
into a patchwork of anarchic, clan-based fiefdoms.
Islamic fundamentalists have portrayed themselves as an
alternative capable of bringing order and peace, but they have not
hesitated to use force and have allegedly linked up with al-Qaida
terrorists.
The secular Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and
Counterterrorism militia and the Islamic Court Union militia have
been squaring off for several weeks to stake out strategic
positions in preparation for a larger battle for control of
Mogadishu.
Rumors abound that the United States is backing the secular
forces. President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed told The Associated Press
last week that he believes Washington is supporting the secular
alliance, which includes ministers in an interim Cabinet, as a way
of fighting several top al-Qaida operatives that are being
protected by radical clerics. Ahmed offered no evidence, and the US
has said only that it had met with a wide variety of Somali leaders
to try to fight international terrorists in the country.?
(Xinhua News Agency Chinadaily.com via agencies, May 11, 2006
)
