Somali rebels threaten violent response to US arms
Mogadishu, 29 June-(ANA)-A Somali radical Islamic insurgent says weapons and ammunition the United States recently supplied to Somalia's embattled government will only increase violence in the war-wracked country.
Sheik Hassan Ya'qub, a spokesman for the militant group al-Shabab in the port town of Kismayo, was responding to an announcement by U.S. officials that the Obama administration had supplied arms and provided military training worth just under $10 million to the shaky official government.
"The weapons sent to the so-called government will only escalate violence in Somalia and we, the holy warriors, believe that we will eventually seize them," said Ya'qub.
Over the past two months, President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed's government has been come under heavy on-off attacks from Islamic insurgents pounding government positions with mortars and targeting senior officials in suicide attacks.
During an intense two-week period of fighting in the capital in May about 200 civilians were killed.(ANA)
Global/Plastics Issue