10 killed in Somalia border fight, witnesses say

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somali insurgents attacked a town near the border with Ethiopia, killing at least 10 people, witnesses and officials said.

Daud Omar, a resident in the Somali border town Yed, said militants from the al-Shabab insurgent group clashed with government soldiers late Sunday. The government and al-Shabab confirmed the fighting.

“We attacked the enemy in Yed and killed 10 of them,” said Sheik Mahad Omar Abdi-karin, an al-Shabab leader in the region. He said the group then withdrew from the town, leaving it in government control.

Al-Shabab controls much of Somalia and operates openly in the capital, Mogadishu, confining the government and peacekeepers to a few blocks of the city. The U.S. and the U.N. both support Somalia’s government and the African peacekeeping force.

Border towns are strategically important to the conflict in Somalia. Ethiopia remains eager to secure key border towns and to preserve the current Somali government. Ethiopia stationed troops in Somalia from late 2006 until they pulled out in January — and their presence was a major point of contention for the insurgents.

Al-Shabab uses nationalist and religious rhetoric to help recruit fighters, portraying the Islamist cause as a defense of Somalia against Ethiopian invaders, who are largely Christian.

U.S. officials have become increasingly concerned that al-Qaida insurgents are moving out of safe havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and into anarchic Somalia, where they can mobilize recruits without interference.

On Thursday, Islamic insurgents used two stolen U.N. cars to launch a suicide attack on an African Union peacekeeping base in Somalia, killing 21 people. It was the deadliest single attack on AU peacekeepers since they arrived in the lawless African nation in 2007.

The group said the bombings were revenge for a U.S. commando raid that killed a key al-Qaida operative, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, in southern Somalia last week.

Somalia has been ravaged by violence and anarchy since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and turned on each other. Piracy has flourished off the Somali coast, making the Gulf of Aden one of the most dangerous waterways in the world.