Let us hope that the Chinese will set everything aright as they do what they can to maintain their oil concessions.

Bot

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More than 80 die in Mogadishu fighting: rights group
By Abdi Sheikh and Aweys Yusuf
Sun Apr 20, 12:18 PM ET
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali Islamist insurgents and government troops exchanged mortar fire on Sunday and a prominent human rights group said 81 people had been killed in the past 24 hours in some of the heaviest clashes in months.

The fighting was fiercest in the Islamist stronghold of northern Mogadishu where the government and its Ethiopian allies are trying to flush out the remnants of a sharia courts movement ousted from the capital at the end of 2006.

"Eighty-one people were killed and 119 were wounded in the violence in Mogadishu since Saturday," Sudan Ali Ahmed, chairman of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organization, told Reuters by telephone.

He said he had collated the death toll from local hospitals, undercover activists counting bodies in the street and families.

There was no independent verification of the death toll, but residents had reported escalating clashes since Saturday.

"We condemn the unceasing fighting and the use of artillery on the civilian population," Ahmed said. "We also condemn the opposition groups who fight among the civilians and use them as (human) shields."

His group estimates that 6,500 people were killed last year in Somalia's conflict and 1.5 million uprooted from their homes.

The interim administration is struggling to contain a deepening Islamist-led insurgency involving near-daily attacks on allied Somali-Ethiopian troops.

The Islamists have also carried out an increasing number of hit-and-run attacks on towns -- seizing control from local administrations that often amount to little more than militias, only to melt away before government reinforcements arrive.

HEAVY FIGHTING

Residents said the two sides had strengthened their positions overnight and exchanged heavy fire in the early hours of Sunday around the Save Our Souls (SOS) Hospital.

"A mortar shell landed on a house just behind SOS hospital, killing an old man and seriously wounding his wife and her 3 children," said a medical worker who declined to be named.

"As we were running to help this family we saw an unidentified dead man lying on the ground," he added.

Health workers in various hospitals said they were treating scores of patients wounded in the fighting.

One witness said he saw the bodies of four men near the main livestock market, adding that no one had dared to take the bodies away "because the whole place is under Ethiopian siege."

Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein expressed regret for Somalis forced to flee the violence but said his interim government and its Ethiopian allies had the right to self-defense.

"I am very sorry for the poor civilians who evacuate when fighting takes place," he told a news conference.

"The government of Somalia is always ready for peace, but if our troops and Ethiopian troops are attacked, fighting with any group that is against peace will be inevitable."

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Abdi; writing by Katie Nguyen; editing by Tim Pearce)

(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/ )

Looks the the French quietly took care of business, lets see what the Spaniards do...hint..nothing.



MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Another vessel has been hijacked off the coast of Somalia, this time a Spanish tuna fishing boat, a senior Spanish Foreign Ministry official told CNN on Sunday.

"We presume pirates," the official said, but said he could not confirm news reports that four pirates were involved in the assault.

An official ministry statement on the incident didn't use the term "pirates."

A crew member on the ship, called "Playa de Bakio," called in the incident to the Spanish government's maritime office about 3 p.m. Sunday. The contact was brief, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

There were no immediate reports of injuries to the 26 crew members, half of whom are Spanish, but the ship was damaged, the official said.

A similar incident occurred earlier this month, when more than a dozen pirates seized a French yacht April 4 off the Somali coast, holding its 30-member crew hostage for a week. No passengers were on board.

The hostages were freed, and six of the dozen or so pirates believed to have been involved are in French custody after a raid in the Somali desert.

U.S. and NATO warships have been patrolling off the Horn of Africa for several years in an effort to crack down on piracy off long-lawless Somalia, where a U.N.-backed transitional government and Ethiopian troops are now battling Islamist insurgents. The seizures have continued despite several run-ins between the pirates and the international fleet in recent months.

The incident with the Spanish ship occurred in an area known as "Somali waters," but the ship's distance from the Somali coast was not immediately known, the official said. It is an area where Spanish tuna boats typically fish, he added.

The statement said the Defense Ministry is sending a nearby ship to the scene of the hijacking. The Foreign Ministry has contacted local authorities and allied nations with a presence in the area. The closest Spanish embassy is in Kenya, which also is responsible for Somalia, the statement said.

http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com/2008/04/after-action-report-and-video-french.html


Note the heads up display of the UAV, look familiar?

I can't find the UAV video, but what was it a Preditor? Wouldn't be surprised if the CIA was involved.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
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2007 Tiara 3200