19 killed in fighting in the southwest

The Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA), which controls the Bay and Bakol regions in southwestern Somalia, has denied accusations that its fighters were involved in fighting which took place in and around Wanle Weyne town, 90 km northwest of Mogadishu, where at least 19 people were killed. Muhammed Ali Adan Qalinle, the governor of Baidoa, 240 km northwest of Mogadishu, told IRIN that the accusations of the Mogadishu-based Transitional National Government (TNG) were “without foundation”. In telephone call from Baidoa, the headquarters of the RRA and the capital of Bay Region, Qalinle said: “We had nothing to do with attack. It was probably a local uprising by people fed up with the TNG.” Qalinle accused the TNG of massing troops in the area, whose “only purpose is to provoke the local people”. The TNG information minister, Zakariya Mahmud Abdi, in a press statement on 27 May, accused the RRA of carrying out the attack. “Seventy RRA fighters attacked Wanle Weyne town” on 27 May at five minutes past midnight local time, when at least six people - four of the them civilians - were killed, he said. TNG forces in the area counterattacked and forced the RRA to retreat. TNG forces then engaged in a pursuit operation, killing 11 of the RRA fighters with the loss of one of their own. The TNG forces also recovered a “passenger vehicle used to carry people and stolen property”, said the statement. The TNG President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan had visited the area on the afternoon of 27 May “to reassure people” a senior official told IRIN. Humanitarian sources in Mogadishu told IRIN on Monday that the area appeared to be calm, and that the road between Mogadishu to Baidoa was open. The source put the death toll at 19. Eight were killed in Wanle Weyne town, while 11 were killed in Libahle village 18 km northwest of Wanle Weyne, where the heaviest fighting took place, the source said.