Wednesday, July 11, 2007
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Suspected Islamist rebels fired mortar bombs at Somalia's presidential palace in Mogadishu on Wednesday, witnesses said, increasing tension ahead of a major peace meeting at the weekend.
A security source at the sprawling hilltop compound said six shells hit just hours after European Union envoys left the capital, having praised preparations for a reconciliation conference of more than 1,000 delegates on Sunday.
"Parts of the wall collapsed in this building," the security source told Reuters by telephone. "We don't know if there are any casualties because no one can go outside."
Roadside bombs blamed on hardline Islamists have become an almost daily threat for Somali government troops, their Ethiopian military allies and Ugandan peacekeepers.
But the mortar attack was the first on President Abdullahi Yusuf's Villa Somalia compound for weeks. It was not immediately clear if he was there at the time.
The violence came shortly after Yusuf's interim government said it would push ahead with a twice-postponed peace conference seen as key to establishing peace in the Horn of Africa nation.
Some 1,355 clan elders, ex-warlords and politicians from across the country have been invited to attend.
At the conference venue -- a bullet-pocked police compound -- dozens of workers swarmed across the site, repairing the roof, erecting walls and installing new windows.
CLAN CONCERNS
The government has been struggling to stamp its authority on Mogadishu since ousting the Islamists with the help of Ethiopia's military in a brief war over the New Year.
An Islamist-led insurgency has rumbled on since then, triggering two bouts of heavy fighting with Ethiopian troops that killed at least 1,300 people and uprooted 400,000 more.
EU diplomats led by the EU Special Envoy to Somalia Georges-Marc Andre visited Mogadishu on Wednesday and said they would return for Sunday's meeting.
The group met senior government officials, the conference organizers and leaders of the city's dominant Hawiye clan, whose militia are blamed along with the Islamists for the guerrilla attacks.
Some Hawiye elders had refused to attend the conference when it was initially scheduled for mid-April, and then mid-June. It was postponed both times due to security fears.
Nairobi-based diplomats following Somalia say they expect Sunday's start to be little more than a formal opening, to buy more time to organize the meeting and assemble delegates.
"I think they'll find some sort of mechanism to launch it before recessing immediately," said one Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"I'd be very surprised if they'd dare admit it wouldn't start, because if it doesn't, it will be finished."
Some opponents of Yusuf's administration have based themselves in Ethiopia's arch-foe Eritrea, where they released a statement on Wednesday saying they would hold a separate meeting there on September 1 to discuss how to "liberate" their country.
(Additional reporting by Jack Kimball in Asmara and Bryson Hull in Nairobi)
Source: Reuters, July 11, 2007