Abu Mansur Robow, ex-deputy defense secretary with Somalia's ousted Islamic Courts movement, told Mogadishu radio Oct. 3 that his Shabaab resistance group has "nothing to do" with the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), recently founded by Somali opposition leaders in the Eritrean capital Asmara. Robow said al-Shabaab was "not satisfied" with the Asmara conference.

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the Islamists' supreme leader, attended the Asmara conference where the ARS was launched. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who was the Islamic Courts' executive head, was elected last month as chairman of the ARS.

Robow also pledged that attacks on Somali and Ethiopian soldiers in Mogadishu will continue. "Two of our martyrs died in last night's battles against the Ethiopian enemy," Robow said, adding that he saw at least five dead Ethiopian soldiers. Somali officials claimed government troops killed 13 insurgents and captured several others when a military base was attacked. (Garowe Online, Oct. 3)

On Oct. 5, soldiers from Somalia's transitional government raided a health clinic in the outskirts of Mogadishu, where the international charity Muslim Aid was distributing food to needy families. Leader of the Hawa Abdi Clinic, Dr. Hawa Abdi, said said the troops attacked her facility without warning and killed one woman "who was waiting for food." (Garowe Online, Oct. 5)

See our last posts on Somalia and Eritrea and the struggle for the Horn of Africa.