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KLMNO THE WORLD
‘You are killing me. And they are also killing me.’ Rising Somali civilian toll inflames anger at U.S.-backed African Union peacekeeping force as it battles Islamist militants
by Sudarsan Raghavan in mogadishu, somalia
A
n African Union peace- keeping force, funded by hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States and its al- lies, has killed, wounded and dis- placed hundreds of Somali civil- ians in a stepped-up campaign against Islamist militants, ac- cording to medical officials, hu- man rights activists and victims. Led by Ugandan and Burundi- an troops, the force has intensi- fied shelling in recent weeks as Somalia’s al-Shabab militia, which is linked to al-Qaeda, has pushed closer toward the fragile government’s seat of power. The shells are landing in heavily pop- ulated areas, in some cases even neighborhoods controlled by the government. Al-Shabab leaders say the peacekeepers and the shelling are the key reasons it bombed two venues in Uganda’s capital last Sunday, killing 76 peo- ple watching broadcasts of the World Cup final. In this war-torn capital, Fatima
Umar and Muse Haji were among the latest victims. An artillery shell crashed into their building, killing Umar on the top floor and Haji on the bottom floor. Umar, 15, was a cleaner who earned $7 a month to support her parents. Haji, 38, was a shopkeeper who was relaxing on his stoop on his day off.
Witnesses said the shell was
fired from the direction of the air- port, which the peacekeepers con- trol. “It was the Ugandans,” de- clared Omar Sharif, a clan elder, as he stood in the rubble next to a shattered bed splattered with Umar’s blood. Sunlight glared through a huge hole in the wall. “When one kilogram of mor- tars are fired by al-Shabab, AMI- SOM replies with 100 kilograms of artillery,” said Abdulqadir Haji, director of a volunteer ambulance service, using the acronym for the African Union force. “It is Amer- ica and the West who support them. America and the West are the silent killers in Somalia’s war.” The mounting civilian toll is breeding popular resentment that threatens to undermine So- malia’s U.S.-backed government, complicating Washington’s ef- forts to combat Islamist militancy in an area where al-Qaeda’s affili- ates are increasingly posing a threat to U.S. interests and re- gional stability as they export ji- had across borders. The bombings in Uganda, which also killed one American, were the first major al-Shabab strikes outside Somalia. They show that the African Union shelling campaign has done little to weaken the militia, which is seeking to overthrow the govern- ment and establish a Taliban-like Islamist emirate. Al-Shabab’s top leader, Muk- htar Abdurahman Abu Zubeyr, vowed more attacks against Uganda if its troops do not leave Somalia. In an audiotape mes- sage, he said the peacekeepers have “committed a nasty massa- cre,” including “constant shelling at poor civilian populations” that
bandaged. In a soft, crackling voice, he struggled to explain what happened. “I was watching my brother
PHOTOS BY SUDARSAN RAGHAVAN/THE WASHINGTON POST Shrapnel from an artillery shell that killed two other civilians pierced the back of 4-year-old Abdullah Gailani, who is being held by his father.
play,” he began. “I heard a crash. Then I felt pain and fell down.” Mohamed stopped talking, as if he had returned to that moment and then began to sob uncontrol- lably. “I want my father,” he cried out. Moments later, Gailani Mo- hammed Abdallah arrived and comforted his son. The shell, he said, had come from the direction of the airport. The hallway outside over- flowed with patients, most with injuries from the shelling. Moga- dishu’s two main hospitals, Madi- na and Keysane, have treated more than 3,000 civilians with war-related wounds this year, in- cluding 1,250 women and chil- dren, according to the Interna- tional Committee of the Red Cross. At this rate, the number of wounded civilians is on track to exceed last year’s total of 5,087. The African Union peacekeep- ers arrived in Mogadishu in 2007, funded in part by $185 million from the United States over the past 19 months. They filled a void left when the United Nations de- cided not to send its own peace- keepers after the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops, who had invad- ed Somalia in late 2006 to tamp down an Islamist uprising. That invasion, covertly backed by the United States, led to the rise al- Shabab, which fought back the Ethiopians. Today, al-Shabab controls large
swaths of southern and central Somalia. The government — the 14th since Somalia descended into chaos after dictator Mo- hamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991 — controls a sliver of the cap- ital.
An unidentified victim of the shelling receives treatment at Mogadishu’s Madina Hospital.
he said was worse than when American troops were here in 1993 during an ill-fated U.N. peacekeeping mission.
Human shields alleged
The peacekeepers deny using disproportionate force and say they exercise maximum restraint, even when they are in imminent danger of attack. They say al- Shabab uses civilians as human shields and in some cases has fired mortar shells at civilians and blamed the peacekeepers. “AMISOM has never shelled in- discriminately at civilians,” said Gaffel Nkolokosa, a spokesman for the force. “Peacekeepers have always avoided civilian shellings and observe international hu- manitarian laws.” Last week, Uganda announced plans to send 2,000 more troops to Somalia to support the 5,000 already there. Somali government officials welcome the peacekeeping mis- sion but expressed concern about the civilian deaths.
on
washingtonpost.com Innocent victims
See a photo gallery of Somali civilians injured in
the peacekeepers’ stepped-up campaign against militants.
“We are in a dilemma,” said Ab-
dirahman Omar Osman, Soma- lia’s minister of information. “For us, al-Shabab is trying to do ev- erything it can to get rid of the government. But when we defend ourselves from al-Shabab, civil- ians get caught in the middle. We do not want one civilian to die.” Mark Zimmer, a public affairs
officer for Somalia at the U.S. Em- bassy in Nairobi, said Washington is “proactive” in trying to prevent the peacekeepers from “inadver- tently targeting civilians and in- creasing their sensitivity to avoid- ing civilian casualties.” But he noted that “al-Shabab has in- creased attacks of late, forcing AMISOM to respond.” The United States said Thurs-
Over four days in the capital last week, this reporter heard as many as 20 shells being fired from one African Union peacekeeping position every day. “Whenever the enemy are gath- ering on the front lines, they shell the area,” said Mohammed Jimal, a government military command- er. “It helps the government. “There are civilian casualties.
No one can deny this,” he added, indifferently. As he spoke, the sharp whistle of a burst of artillery echoed across the capital. The shell that killed Umar and
The room where Fatima Umar, 15, was killed by a shell that witnesses said came from the direction of the peacekeeping force’s position.
day that it would increase its sup- port of the mission. Most Somalis loathe al-Shabab for its brutality and repressive dictates. But they say the peace- keeping force should be held re- sponsible for its actions. “The people are saying, ‘What is the difference between AMI- SOM and al-Shabab?’ ” said Has- san Elmi, a peace activist who lives near the airport and says he hears as many as 200 to 300 shells
DIGEST FRANCE
Shooting by police sparks riot in south Rioters burned cars, attacked a
tramway and shot at police in the southeastern city of Grenoble on Friday night to protest the death of a local man fleeing police after allegedly holding up a casino. The violence began about mid- night and lasted through the night in the impoverished subur- ban neighborhood of Villeneuve, home to the alleged thief. No cas- ualties were reported. The riot in Grenoble recalled civil unrest that exploded across France in 2005 after two teen- agers from a Paris suburb died as they were fleeing police. The deaths touched off weeks of riots across the country, often in the rough suburbs that ring France’s major cities. These high- rise neighborhoods, built in the 1950s and 1960s to house a grow- ing population of industrial workers and immigrants, have become near-ghettos where un- employment is high and public services are poor.
Since then, unrest has flared
often after clashes between resi- dents and police.
— Reuters AFGHANISTAN
Roadside bombs kill 5 NATO troops
Five NATO troops died in road- side bombings in Afghanistan, the alliance said Saturday, as international forces announced they had foiled an attack on an upcoming conference in Kabul. Security is being tightened across the capital for Tuesday’s conference, which is attracting the heads of NATO, the United Nations and top diplomats, in- cluding Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Acting on intelligence, a NATO and Afghan commando force captured a Taliban bombmaking expert Friday night in Kabul, NATO said. Elsewhere, three coalition
service members were killed by homemade bombs Saturday, in- cluding an American in eastern Afghanistan and a British soldier in the south. A third service member died Saturday in the south, but NATO did not disclose the nationality. Two others — a British marine and an American service member — died in an explosion Friday in the south.
— Associated Press PAKISTAN
Insurgent ambush kills 16 in northwest
Men armed with assault rifles ambushed a convoy of civilian ve- hicles Saturday in northwestern Pakistan, the scene of extensive military operations targeting Is- lamist insurgents.
Sixteen people were killed in
the attack in Char Khel village, in the troubled tribal region of Kur- ram, while en route to the main northwestern city of Peshawar. Kurram has witnessed scores of such attacks, robberies and kidnappings for ransom in the past three years.
— Associated Press MIDDLE EAST
Abbas sets conditions for new direct talks
Palestinian Authority Presi- dent Mahmoud Abbas said he will resume direct peace talks if Israel accepts its 1967 frontier as a baseline for the borders of a Pal- estinian state and agrees to the deployment of an international force to guard them.
Abbas, who is under growing
U.S. pressure to resume negotia- tions, met Saturday with Presi-
dent Obama’s Mideast envoy, George J. Mitchell. Israeli Prime Minister Binya-
min Netanyahu has refused to be pinned down on a framework for negotiations, insisting on talks without conditions.
— Associated Press
Now that’s some vintage bubbly: Divers have discovered what might be the world’s oldest drink- able champagne in a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea, one of the find-
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHINA Firefighters work near flames emanating from an oil pipeline explosion that occurred Friday in Dalian. Officials said no one was killed in the fire, which burned for 15 hours before being extinguished Saturday.
ers said. They tasted the one bot- tle they have brought up so far before they even got back to shore. The bottles are thought to be from the 1780s and part of car- go destined for Russia. — From news services
being fired each day. “You are kill- ing me. And they are also killing me.”
‘I want my father’
At Mogadishu’s Madina Hospi- tal, the Gailani brothers lay next to each other on beds. Tubes ran from 12-year-old Sharif’s arms; a thick bandage covered his stom- ach. Motionless, he stared blankly at the ceiling. Ten-year-old Mo- hamed’s right arm and leg were
Haji also wounded 4-year-old Ab- dullah Gailani, who was recover- ing at the hospital. A bandage covered the shrapnel that had pierced his back. Next door, 9- year-old Hassan Muneye sat in a chair. He was playing soccer when he heard a whistle and then a crash, and then felt a sharp pain in his leg. “We will never play outside
again,” Muneye said. “Perhaps we’ll hear another whistle.” Neighborhood leaders have de- manded compensation for their losses. So far, neither the African Union nor the government has sent an official to visit their neigh- borhood.
“Our lives have no value,” said Ali Amin Hadji, a clan elder. “We have been forgotten.”
raghavans@washpost.com
SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2010
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