Mogadishu, Somalia
Thousands of people fled Mogadishu this week to escape renewed fighting between Islamic insurgents and Ethiopian troops supporting the Somali government. The Ethiopians have been trying to persuade elders from Mogadishu’s main clan, the Hawiye, to support Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, who is not from that clan. Insurgent attacks interrupted that process. Clan rivalries have resumed since the Islamists, who had brought a few months of calm to the capital, were driven out in December. Al Qaida this week called on Muslims to go to Somalia to fight with the Islamists. “All the things which make jihad an individual duty are present in their battle against the Abyssinian occupiers and their apostate lackeys,” al Qaida said, referring to the Ethiopians.
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