Somalia's Ethiopia-backed armed forces and Islamic fighters clashed yesterday near the seat of government in Baidoa for a second day, tilting the country into deeper conflict, officials and witnesses said.
A day after the European Commission humanitarian chief Louis Michel said he had secured the commitment of both sides to a truce and resumption of peace talks, Information Minister Ali Jama said the Islamists were mobilizing to continue the clashes.
"Mortar fire was still going on at night ... nothing has stopped. We are expecting new attacks during the day from both fronts," he said.
PHOTO: EPA
"They are mobilizing and these people are showing signs of their readiness to fight," he added.
But residents said rival forces continued pounding each other with heavy shells and rockets near the seat of government in Baidoa, about 250km northwest of Mogadishu, and hundreds of terrified civilians fled the battlezone.
"I have taken my family to Baidoa for safety, because we can hear heavy artillery shells in the area," Adan Mursal said, a resident of Daynunay, 30km east of Baidoa.
"No one slept all night because of the fierce fighting," he added.
Jama said the government was prepared to defend itself, a day after claiming that its Ethiopia-backed troops had inflicted heavy losses on Islamic fighters in an upsurge of clashes.
"The government will not attack anybody, but we are prepared to defend ourselves," he said.
Deadly clashes erupted early Wednesday, hours after the expiry of an Islamist ultimatum for Ethiopian forces backing the weak government to withdraw.
The government said it killed "hundreds" of Islamic fighters who attacked army training camps in Daynunay and in Manas, 30km south of Baidoa, but the Islamists rejected the claims.
"We have killed a lot and won the war, we shall continue defeating the enemy of Allah," said Islamic commander Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim Bilal.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion