Mogadishu Battle Draws in Foreign Powers

In early May, insurgent fighters from the hard-line Al-Shabab Islamic group, pictured, launched a major offensive in Mogadishu, aimed at overthrowing the new, U.S.- and U.N.-backed coalition government of moderate Islamist Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. As tens of thousands of refugees fled the city, Al Shabab closed in on the presidential palace, where Ahmed and his lieutenants were fortified behind an African-Union peacekeeping force, equipped with tanks and mortars.
U.N. envoy to Somalia Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah called the attack a “coup attempt.” He said that Al-Shabab leader Hassan Dahir Aweys “came to take power and topple a legitimate regime.” Al Shabab’s coup attempt has split one of Somalia’s other large Islamist groups. Part of Hizbul Islam sided with Aweys, but another Hizbul-Islam faction — with 200 fighters and a dozen gun-armed trucks — joined Ahmed.
The fighting has also drawn in foreign elements on both sides. Somalis from the Diaspora in the U.S., Great Britain and continental Europe sneaked into Somalia to fight with Al Shabab, while Eritrea reportedly supplied plane-loads of small arms and munitions to the hard-line Islamists. Osama Bin Laden has publicly encouraged Al Shabab to assassinate Ahmed and destroy his government. It’s unclear whether the foreign fighters are formally aligned with Al Qaeda, or simply “freelancing” on Al Shabab’s behalf.
Ahmed counts powerful backers of his own. Ethiopia, which in the late 1990s fought a bloody border war with Eritrea, reportedly deployed troops across the Somali border to help secure key towns. Turkey promised millions of dollars to boost the Somali government’s security forces, and the A.U. called on the U.N. to denounce Eritrean meddling, and establish port blockades and a no-fly zone to prevent arms shipments reaching Al Shabab.
Somalia hasn’t had a functional government since 1991, when clan warlords overthrew a repressive. The resulting chaos has killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced hundreds of thousands more, and given rise to a thriving underground economy of banditry and piracy...more..http://www.offiziere.ch/?p=1567