MOGADISHU: A top Islamic leader accused Ethiopia on Tuesday of firing missiles on a town in central Somalia, as thousands of enraged Somalis gathered in the capital shouting “Down with America! Down with Ethiopia!” “As I’m speaking to you, Ethiopians have shelled 12 missiles at Bandiradley,” Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, head of the Executive Council of Islamic Courts, told the rally in Mogadishu, about 500kilometres from Bandiradley. The claim could not be immediately verified. Calls to several top Ethiopian officials went unanswered. Ahmed did not say whether there were casualties. The accusation heightens tension in Somalia, where the Islamic movement is increasingly sidelining the country’s internationally backed official government, which wields no real power.
Ethiopia, a largely Christian nation, fears the emergence of a neighbouring Islamic state and has acknowledged sending military advisers, though not a fighting force, to help the Somali government. The Islamic militia captured Bandiradley, about 70 kilometres from the Ethiopian border, earlier this month after claiming they came under attack from pro-government militia backed by Ethiopian troops. The Islamic Council has been gaining ground since seizing the capital, Mogadishu, in June.
The US accuses the group of sheltering suspects in the 1998 al-Qaeda bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which it denies. Experts say an all-out war between the two sides could engulf the region. On Tuesday, the council held a rally in Mogadishu on the eve of a planned UNSC meeting in New York where are solution on the deployment of peacekeepers to Somalia is expected to be discussed.
www.thenews.com
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