A war-ravaged country, a besieged city

By Standard Reporter

Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed declared a state of emergency on Saturday, citing "intensifying violence across the country".

His UN-backed transitional government is coming under intense pressure from Islamist militias that control swathes of the country.

He asked for urgent foreign military intervention — a call backed by the African Union.

"As of today, the country is under a state of emergency," President Ahmed told reporters in the capital.

Since 7 May, an alliance of militant Islamist hardliners, which controls much of southern Somalia and parts of the capital Mogadishu, has been locked in ferocious battles with pro-government forces.

Last week alone, the security minister, Mogadishu’s police chief and an MP were killed.

On Saturday, parliamentary speaker Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nur asked for foreign intervention within 24 hours to help repulse militia in the country.

He said the radical Islamist group Al Shabab, which is accused of links to Al Qaeda, was using foreign fighters.

But Al Shabaab says the suicide bomber who killed Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden and at least 34 others in Beledweyne last Thursday was a Somali man identified as Mohamed Deerow Sheikh Adam.

Need food aid

AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping said in a statement the Somali government had "the right to seek support from AU member-states and the larger international community".

The African Union has some 4,300 peacekeepers in Mogadishu, but its mandate prevents them from attacking the Islamist hardliners except for in self-defence. Some four million people in Somalia — or about one third of the population — need food aid, according to aid agencies.

Kenya Police say since the al-Shabaab militia carried out kidnapings in Mandera last year, a number of mortars, bomb-making materials, detonators and guns have been found in Mandera town amid speculations they were smuggled there for unspecified strikes.

All these, according to police, show the Al Shabaab, which has been linked to Al Qaeda, is a terrorist group and it could be a matter of time before they commit more atrocities.

The ongoing violence carried out by the Al Shabaab has prompted extreme vigilance and alertness by Kenyan security agencies.

Kenya has been a victim of terrorism twice in Nairobi and Kilifi where more than 200 people were killed.