Somali Insurgents Condemn AU for Shelling Civilians

Retaliation Threatened Against Uganda, Burundi

Insurgent groups in Somalia are scoring a major PR victory today, condemning the African Union (AU) “peacekeepers” for firing dozens of rockets into the crowded Bakara market today, killing several civilians.

The incident came yesterday, when insurgents fired mortars at the airplane of Somali President Ahmed. The AU responded to the attack by firing at the market, Mogadishu’s largest, which is in militant controlled territory.

Though the chain of events was widely confirmed yesterday, the African Union is now denying that it fired any rockets at all, and insisted that the militants shelled their own market for some inscrutible reason. The insurgents confirmed attacking the plane, but said the mortars were fired from outside the city, far from civilian occupied areas.

Al-Shabaab, one of the nation’s largest militant groups, is threatening to launch retaliatory attacks inside Uganda and Burundi, the nations who have committed materially all of the troops to the AU force in Somalia.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.