Helicopter shot down in Mogadishu
An Ethiopian military helicopter hit by insurgents is seen in the skies above Mogadishu yesterday. Insurgents shot down the helicopter gunship during a second day of fighting.
Rebels shot down a helicopter gunship in Mogadishu Fridday in a second day of battles as Ethiopian and Somali forces sought to crush an insurgency by Islamists and clan militia.
At least 30 people, and probably far more, have died.
Shells rained down on the capital and deafening tank fire shattered homes, as hundreds of guerrillas replied with barrages of mortars, missiles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).
Terrified residents
An Ethiopian military helicopter hit by insurgents is seen in the skies above Mogadishu yesterday. Insurgents shot down the helicopter gunship during a second day of fighting. Photo/REUTERS
As terrified residents hid in their homes, reporters watched from rooftops as two Ethiopian helicopters fired on an insurgent stronghold before one of them was struck by a missile or RPG.
“Smoke billowed from the cabin and it turned towards the ocean,” one witness, Swiss journalist Eugen Sorg, told Reuters. “It crashed at the south end of the airport runway.”
Black smoke poured into the air and several explosions were heard booming from the crash site by the Indian Ocean coast.
The joint Ethiopian and government offensive triggered the bullet-scarred capital’s worst clashes for months.
A spokesman for Mr Ban Ki-moon said the UN secretary-general was “deeply disturbed” by the intensified fighting.
“He is particularly concerned about the use of air strikes and the introduction of tanks and heavy artillery into densely populated parts of the city,” the spokesman said in a statement.
More than 100 people have been wounded since yesterday, and the toll of dead and injured looked sure to rise.
“A mortar has just fallen into the house next to me. We can hear crying. We barely slept. ... The sky was lit up by shelling all night,” said Mr Faisal Jamah, a south Mogadishu resident.
“There are a lot of wounded, but there is no way to take them to the hospitals due to the fighting.”
Mobs dragged dead Ethiopian soldiers through the streets on Thursday, and wild-eyed gunmen posed with the corpses.
The bloody scenes recalled the shooting down by militiamen of two US Black Hawk helicopters in 1993 during a failed US mission to hunt down Mogadishu warlords.
With some of the clan militia who used to rule the capital fighting alongside the Islamists, the battles have torn a brief and shaky truce between the Ethiopian military and the city’s dominant clan, the Hawiye, to shreds.
Analysts said Addis Ababa appeared bent on an all-out push against the insurgents, who have been emboldened by recent strikes including the downing of an airplane serving an African peacekeeping mission, and ambushes killing soldiers.
While Christian-led Ethiopia clearly hopes this week’s offensive will crush the rebels once and for all, the experts said it may have the opposite effect of further alienating the city’s population or attracting foreign Muslim jihadists.
Heaviest fighting
The White House gave a report to the US Congress on Thursday saying foreign militants were still able to find a safe haven in Somalia.
Some of Friday’s heaviest fighting rocked streets around the main soccer stadium, where witnesses said Ethiopian troops and rebels had dug trenches just a few metres apart.
One Islamist gunmen said the Ethiopians were pinned down.
“We killed a lot of them and burned their trucks,” Mr Hassan Osman told Reuters. “Right now, they control only the stadium.”
Local media said panic-stricken civilians continued to flee the city Friday, many of them piling their possessions on donkey-carts.
Reuters
