After African union commission imposed sanction on the airports and the
seaports controlled by Alshabaab, Somalia’s Alshabaab militant group say
they would find it "relatively easy" to launch a devastating attack using
Somaliland ports to get weapons from Eritrea and Iran.
“AU is lying, they can restrict us we can transport and equipments we have
through Somaliland ports and airports into a country with a suitcase”
Alshabaab said in a statement posted on www.alshabaab.net before it’s
suspended.
They continued: "It would be a relatively easy and simple process.
"A few hundred dollars and a plane ticket and you could have a pretty good
stab at it."
Trying to stop everything coming in at the border and seaports plus airports
would not work, the statement said.
In a statement issued Saturday, the 53-African union bloc urged the UN
Security Council to "impose sanctions against all those foreign actors, both
within and outside the region, especially Eritrea, providing support to the
armed groups" in Somalia.
The statement also called for imposing a UN blockade of Somalia's airstrips
and seaports "to prevent the entry of foreign elements into Somalia" to join
the Islamist militants in their armed campaign against the western-backed
Somali interim government and the AU peacekeepers deployed in the Horn of
Africa country.
In response to the AU call for UN sanctions, Eritrea on Saturday rejected
the allegations of supporting the Somali insurgents and suspended its
membership of the African Union.
Earlier in the week, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD),
a six-member east African regional bloc, had called for imposing UN sanction
on Eritrea, accusing it of supplying arms to the Somali Islamist insurgents.
The IGAD also suspended Eritrea from the bloc, which currently consists of
Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan and Uganda, and urged the United
Nations to impose an air and sea blockade on Somalia to prevent the Islamist
militants there from getting arms and foreign fighters.
The calls for imposing UN sanctions on Eritrea came as clashes intensified
in the Somali capital of Mogadishu after the government forces launched a
major counter offensive to recapture the areas captured by the rebels in
their recent offensive.
The latest attacks by the Islamist militants are aimed at overthrowing
Somalia's interim government led by President Ahmed, who had agreed in March
to enforce Islamic law in the country to appease the militants after they
seized control of many major towns in southern and central Somalia,
including Baidoa, the seat of the Somali interim government.
Somali officials say that more than a hundred people have been killed and
over 45,000 others displaced from Mogadishu after a combined force of two
militant Islamic groups, al-Shabab and Hisbul-Islam, launched the
anti-government offensive ten days ago.
The al-Shabaab group, a military wing of the Islamist movement ousted by
Ethiopia-backed Somali forces two years ago, and several other allied
militants groups have opposed past UN-sponsored reconciliation efforts in
Somalia, and insist that they will negotiate with the country's transitional
government only after the AU peacekeeping mission leaves Somalia.
Currently, a 4,300-strong AU force is struggling with their peacekeeping
efforts in Somalia after the ousted Islamist fighters turned to guerrilla
warfare against the government and AU troops. So far only Uganda and Burundi
have contributed troops to the AU peacekeeping force, which was initially
planned to have strength of over 8,000.
Somalia has not had a functioning government after the fall of the last
government in 1991. It is estimated the fighting between the Islamist
insurgents and the army coalition has killed thousands of Somalis and
displaced hundreds of thousands more, mostly from Mogadishu.
Source: Mareeg
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