January 25, 2007	Thursday	Muharram 05, 1428

MOGADISHU, Jan 24: A mortar attack on Mogadishu's main airport wounded five people on Wednesday as the United States sought to enlist a leader of Somalia’s now-vanquished Islamist movement in a bid to stem the tide of violence.

The strike on the international airport underlined the volatile security situation, the day Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi vowed not to pull all his troops out of Somalia until the arrival of African Union peacekeepers.

One of the victims of the barrage of mortar shells, fired at the airport shortly after a UN plane landed, was said to be in a serious condition.

The nine-member UN delegation that arrived before the mortars were launched was taken to the UN compound in Mogadishu, where the team met with Somali officials as planned, UN staffers said.

“The airport is operating as normal, there was no panic,” an airport authority official told reporters after the attack. “It was a small disruption but there was no damage to the runway.” Witnesses however said Somali police forces backed by Ethiopian troops, many of whom are based at the airport, sealed off surrounding areas and then assaulted civilians.A first batch of some 200 Ethiopian forces, who helped the interim Somali government oust hardline Islamists from Mogadishu late last month, left the capital on Tuesday but Meles said the pullout would not be completed until he was satisfied no security vacuum could emerge.

“We'll withdraw our troops in three phases. My expectation is that our last phase will coincide with the AU deployment. There will be no vacuum,” he told reporters in Addis Ababa.

Although the AU agreed on Friday to the deployment of the force by the end of the month, only two countries -- Uganda and Malawi -- have pledged troops.

The AU's deputy chairman Patrick Mazimhaka cast further doubt over the mission when he said there had not yet been any clear commitment from a non-African country to help fund the 7,600-strong force.

“With every day that passes without a clear commitment to help the AU in Somalia, an opportunity is being squandered,” Mazimhaka said in an interview with the Financial Times.

The Islamists have threatened a guerilla war against the interim government as well as the Ethiopians whose intervention was decisive in the toppling of the flight of the Islamists on Dec 28.

The interim government had only been able to operate out of a provincial backwater until then, watching from afar as rival warlords slugged it out in Mogadishu before being crushed by the Islamists last June.

Washington, which accused the Islamists of harbouring Al Qaeda affiliates, has been pushing the interim government to pursue a path of reconciliation.

US Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger used a meeting with a top member of the Islamist movement to urge him to have his supporters renounce violence.

Ranneberger, whose brief includes Somalia, met with Sheikh Sharif Sheikh in Nairobi, where he has been in the protective custody of the Kenyan authorities since turning himself over the weekend.

Although there were no details on the meeting, the embassy said on Tuesday the ambassador would urge Ahmed to counsel his supporters to avoid violence and to support the development of an inclusive government.

US ATTACK: Meanwhile The Washington Post, citing unnamed US officials, reported that a US gunship struck at suspected Al Qaeda operatives in southern Somalia on Monday.

If confirmed, it would be the second such attack this month, following a January 8 strike on a site where senior Al Qaeda operatives were believed to be hiding. Somalia's deputy premier Hussein Mohamed Aidid did not confirm the strike.

“This is just speculation and we have not received any information,” he said.—AFP