Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen landed in Libya Monday to declare an official end at midnight Monday to the seven-month aerial bombing campaign that helped depose longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi.

"We have been mandated by the United Nations Security Council to protect civilians and that mission has been a great success," he told CNN during the flight from Brussels, Belgium. "We have prevented a massacre. We have saved countless lives. We have fully implemented the United Nations mandate. That was our mission and we have done what we promised to do."
But the Pentagon said Monday that the United States will continue monitoring Libya from the skies even after the end of formal NATO military operations.
"There will be some kind of overwatch role for a little while after the actual end," Pentagon spokesman, Capt. John Kirby said. "We are still working with our NATO allies on that." U.S. manned and unmanned aircraft played a key reconnaissance role in the Libya operation even after U.S. forces stopped taking the lead combat role.
And National Transitional Council spokesman Ahmed Bani told CNN that he was expecting the mission would be suspended rather than canceled. "To cancel it, in these circumstances, I don't think was the right decision, especially at this time," he said, citing the continued presence of pro-Gadhafi elements.
NATO's move comes after the United Nations Security Council last week rescinded its March mandate for military intervention to protect civilians targeted during anti-regime protests.
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said NATO's mission puts Libya on a path to freedom.
But she tempered her remarks with a word of caution.

"We're very concerned that, as we move forward, that the authorities make maximum effort to swiftly form an inclusive government that incorporates all aspects of Libyan society, and in which the rights of all Libyan people are fully and thoroughly respected, regardless of their gender, their religion, their region of origin," Rice said after the Security Council vote last Thursday.
"But for the United States, and, I think, for the United Nations Security Council, this closes what I think history will judge to be a proud chapter in the Security Council's history."
Momentum to end the campaign began building after Gadhafi was killed following his capture near his hometown of Sirte on October 20.
Many British military personnel who had been stationed at an Italian airfield for the campaign already are returning home.
Meanwhile, Gadhafi's relatives said they plan to file a war crimes complaint.
"All of the events that have taken place since February 2011 and the murder of Gadhafi, all of this means we are totally in our right to call upon the International Criminal Court," Marcel Ceccaldi, a lawyer representing the family, said last week.

Questions have been raised about how Gadhafi was killed.
Amateur videos showed him alive when captured by the opposition. He died from a shot in the head, officials said, but the circumstances surrounding the shot remain unclear.
NATO's Libya campaign began in March, after the Security Council adopted Resolution 1973, which imposed a no-fly zone in the country's airspace and authorized member states to take measures to protect civilians.

Source: CNN's Jomana Karadsheh contributed to this story.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/31/world/africa/libya-nato-mission/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

By ABDI GULED and KATHARINE HOURELD - Associated Press | AP

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A team of suicide bombers and gunmen disguised as soldiers assaulted an African Union base in the Somali capital on Saturday, sparking a two-hour gunfight that left at least 10 people dead, security officials said. The al-Qaida-linked Islamist militant group that claimed the attack said one of the bombers was Somali-American.

The attack underscored the militants' ability to carry out complex and deadly operations even after AU troops forced them from most of Mogadishu and a famine in their strongholds weakened their forces. Earlier this month, Kenya sent troops into Somalia following a string of cross-border attacks and kidnappings blamed on Somali gunmen and militants battling Somalia's weak, U.N.-backed government.

During Saturday's attack, the two suicide bombers blew themselves up near the entrance to the compound, then more armed attackers jumped over the walls, a Nairobi-based security official said. He asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

The true extent of casualties from the assault was unclear, although a Somali soldier, Col. Nor Abdi, said at least 10 people were killed.

"They were dressed in Somali military uniform and disguised as ordinary soldiers," Abdi said. "Then they tried to enter the base and (AU) soldiers fired at them. Then heavy gunfire started and all of them were killed. I don't know how many they were but they were more than 10 men."

In a claim posted on Somalimemo.net, a website it frequently uses, al-Shabab militants said one of the bombers was a Somali-American and claimed he was the second Somali-American involved in a suicide attack in Mogadishu within five months. They did not name the youth or offer further details, and the claim could not immediately be independently verified.

U.S. authorities say that around 20 American citizens, most of Somali descent, have traveled to Somalia to fight with the al-Shabab insurgents. The most well-known among them is Omar Hammami from Alabama, known as Abu Mansur al-Amriki, who posts internet videos in which he raps about the conflict.

Al-Shabab claimed to have killed dozens of AU soldiers and government troops in Saturday's assault, but the group habitually exaggerates the number of people it kills and an AU statement did not mention casualty figures.

"With the access routes to the base cut off by other units of the Mujahideen, the Ugandan forces and (government) militia trapped inside the compound were soon massacred and all military arsenal and ammunitions seized. Some of the Ugandan soldiers who managed to escape the compound were later pursued and killed," the al-Shabab statement said.

It was written in perfect English, a sign of the growing sophistication of al-Shabab's media wing.

The AU statement said its forces had "beaten off" the attack. AU troops have been in Somalia since 2007. Some 9,000 AU soldiers are helping Somalia's government hang on to the capital.

Meanwhile, the chief of Kenya's armed forces, Gen. Julius Karangi, told reporters that the country does not have a timeframe for leaving Somalia.

"When the Kenya government and the people of this country feel that they are safe enough from the al-Shabab menace, we shall pull back," Karangi said. "Key success factors or indicators will be in the form of a highly degraded al-Shabab capacity."

His statement raised questions about whether Kenya risks becoming bogged down in an open-ended occupation of its war-ravaged neighbor. Both the U.N. and Ethiopia sent forces into Somalia at different times during its 20-year-old civil war but were forced to withdraw without ending the conflict.

Karangi said Kenya has no interest in permanently occupying Somalia and is working with its government. The Somali president has criticized the Kenyan intervention, but Kenyan officials said they expected "clarification" from a high-level Somali delegation on Monday.

So far Kenya has suffered one fatality due to al-Shabab fire, Karangi said, although five people were killed when their helicopter crashed. He said hundreds of al-Shabab were believed to be killed although he had no way of confirming that directly. Al-Shabab militants have mostly withdrawn without fighting Kenyan forces.

Although Kenya has bilateral military agreements with countries such as the United States and Britain, those allies are not directly militarily involved in the incursion into Somalia, Karangi said.

"There has been a lot of talk about other friends of ours participating militarily in what we are engaged in, and the answer is no," he said.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since warlords overthrew a socialist dictator in 1991. More than 600,000 Somali refugees have fled the fighting and famine in their homeland and now live in Kenya. The Kenyan government is deeply worried about the rapidly swelling refugee camps in the north, which it considers a severe security problem.

Source: 

http://news.yahoo.com/militants-somali-american-bombed-au-210626715.html

Calm returned on Saturday to Sidi Bouzid, the birthplace of the Tunisian revolution, after an overnight curfew imposed because of violent post-election protests, police said.

"There were no incidents during the night," a police official said.

The town's weekly market was open, and residents were going about normal activities as teams worked to clean and repair public buildings vandalised during two days of unrest over the disqualification of some candidates in Tunisia's first free elections.

A few tanks remained stationed by the police headquarters and town hall, however, and schools remained closed.

Late on Friday, Hechmi Haamadi, a businessman whose Popular Petition won in Sidi Bouzid, appealed on the town's residents to halt the protests, echoing an appeal by the head of the Islamist Ennahda party which won Sunday's polls.

Tension had remained high late Friday despite the curfew, as disgruntled groups were threatening further damage and the army boosted partrols in the town, an AFP correspondent reported.

The curfew was in effect from 7:00 pm Friday to 5:00 am (0400 GMT) on Saturday.

It was in Sidi Bouzid that fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi, an unemployed university graduate, set himself on fire on December 17 last year to protest abuses under Ben Ali's 23-year regime.

He died days later, but Bouazizi's desperate act sparked the popular revolt that toppled Ben Ali less than a month later and ignited region-wide uprisings that have since also ousted strongmen in Cairo and Tripoli.

Source:  AFP 

http://news.yahoo.com/tunisia-flashpoint-town-calm-curfew-101027027.html

A Tunisian Islamist party emerged victorious in the Arab Spring's first elections, taking 90 of 217 seats on a new assembly nine months after the ouster of dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.

Violent protests broke out in the central town of Sidi Bouzid, where the uprising started last December, after the provisional final results were announced, witnesses and the interior ministry said.

The Ennahda party now has the single-biggest share of the assembly assembly that will rewrite the constitution, appoint a president and form a caretaker government, elections chief Kamel Jendoubi told journalists in Tunis.

He also announced the invalidation of six candidates' lists of thePetition for Justice and Development, including one in Sidi Bouzid, notably due to "financial irregularities".

The group had nevertheless obtained 19 assembly seats.

Witnesses said more than 2,000 young people on Thursday marched on Ennahda's headquarters in Sidi Bouzid at the news and pelted security forces with stones.

An AFP correspondent said they broke doors and windows of the Ennahda building and set alight tyres on the town's main road.

A similar protest was under way in the town of Regueb, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Sidi Bouzid, said witnesses, where a gunshot was fired at the local Ennahda offices.

On the main road in the capital Tunis however, the results were met with a cacophony of car hooters blaring, as people hung out of car windows singing and waving Ennahda and Tunisian flags.

The provisional results put two leftist parties in second and third place after Sunday's historic polls: the Congress for the Republic (CPR) obtaining 30 seats, and Ettakatol 21 seats.

In fourth place was the Petition, a grouping led by Hechmi Haamdi, a rich London-based businessman said to have close ties to Ben Ali. Following the announcement of the invalidations, Haamdi announced the withdrawal of all his candidates from the assembly.

Ennahda was banned under Ben Ali's regime and only registered as a political party in March.

But on Wednesday, preempting the official news of its victory, it announced it had started coalition negotiations and intended to form a new government within a month.

The party, which presents itself as having a moderate Islamist agenda, has put forward its number two, Hamadi Jebali, as candidate for prime minister.

The new assembly will decide on the country's system of government and how to guarantee basic liberties, including women's rights, which many in Tunisia fear Ennahda would seek to diminish despite its assurances to the contrary.

Analysts have said that Ennahda, even in a majority alliance, would be unable to "dictate" any programme to the assembly.

They argue that it will have no choice but to appease its coalition partners, a moderate-minded society, and the international community on whose investment and tourism the country relies heavily.

Leftist parties may yet seek to form a majority bloc against Ennahda, which said it had met bankers and stockbrokers earlier Thursday to "reassure" them.

Tunisian voters turned out in strength Sunday to elect the new assembly.

The electoral system was designed to include as many parties as possible in drafting the new constitution, expected to take a year, ahead of fresh national polls.

Coalition negotiations are expected to be complicated, with all of Ennahda's potential partners on the leftist, secular side of the spectrum.

But Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi has said a government would be put together as soon as possible, "within no more than a month."

Jebali on Wednesday signalled his intention to form an executive with the highest scoring leftist parties, singling out the CPR and Ettakatol.

At the same time Ettakatol chief Mustapha Ben Jaafar said coalition talks had started "with all the political partners, including Ennahda."

The CPR has defended its talks with the Islamist party.

"No, no, no it is not the devil and we do not make pacts with the devil," party leader Moncef Marzouki said on Wednesday.

"One must not take them for the Taliban of Tunisia. It is a moderate part of Islam."

The names of presidential candidates have started circulating in the media, including those of Marzouki, Ben Jafaar and current interim Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi.

The Progressive Democratic Party, polled in second place before the election, came fifth with 17 seats.

(Source: http://news.yahoo.com/final-tunisian-poll-results-due-085019831.html)

Gadaffi's son ready to surrender says NTC

(Reuters) - Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who once vowed to die fighting on Libyan soil, now wants to face international justice instead and avoid any chance of meeting the same grisly end as his father, Libyan officials said.

An official of the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) said on Wednesday that Saif al-Islam, the only one of Muammar Gaddafi's eight children still on the run, had proposed surrendering to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has indicted him for war crimes.

Surrender by 39-year-old Saif al-Islam would close another chapter in the four-decade history of Gaddafi family rule, as the United Nations discusses an end to its Libyan mandate that allowed NATO to bomb the country and help rebels to take power.

He was widely seen as Muammar Gaddafi's favored son and his heir apparent.

Saif al-Islam wanted to surrender to the Dutch-based ICC with his relative, former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, said Abdel Majid Mlegta, an official of the NTC which overran the last Muammar Gaddafi stronghold of Sirte a week ago.

"They are proposing a way to hand themselves over to The Hague," said Mlegta.

The ICC indicted Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam and Senussi for their roles in using force to try to put down the uprising which began in February.

An ICC spokesman said it had no confirmation of any talks about Saif al-Islam's surrender.

ANOTHER U-TURN

NTC officials have said Saif al-Islam is hiding in Libya's southern desert after failing to find a safe haven in a neighboring country like Algeria or Niger, which have offered refuge to the other four Gaddafi children who survived the eight-month civil war.

Any surrender would mark a U-turn by Saif al-Islam, an internationally well-connected philanthropist and liberal reformer who turned abruptly into a soldier ready to die rather than capitulate when rebels rose up against his father.

"We fight here in Libya; we die here in Libya," he told Reuters Television in an interview earlier this year.

He now appears to prefer the prospect of a Dutch prison cell rather than risk falling into the hands of NTC forces.

NTC fighters seized Muammar Gaddafi last week after they overran his hometown of Sirte. Within hours he was dead, although it remains unclear who killed him, and his rotting corpse was put on public display for four days before being buried in a secret desert grave on Tuesday.

At the United Nations, envoys said the Security Council planned to end U.N. authorization this week for a no-fly zone and NATO intervention in Libya despite calls from the NTC for it to wait.

The Security Council made the authorization in March to protect Libyans from the forces that Muammar Gaddafi had deployed to suppress pro-democracy uprisings across the country.

Libya's people were "looking forward to terminating the no-fly zone over Libya as well as terminating the mandate accorded by Security Council resolution 1973 to protect civilians as soon as possible," Libyan Deputy U.N. Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi told the 15-nation council on Wednesday.

"In accordance with the initial assessments, the date of October 31 is a logical date to terminate this mandate," he said.

But he said the NTC had not yet made an official decision on whether to request termination of the U.N. mandate, which authorized members of NATO and other U.N. member states to take "all necessary measures" to protect Libyan civilians.

NATO bombing prevented Muammar Gaddafi's forces from taking the rebel stronghold of Benghazi and allowed often disorganized rebel units to eventually control the whole county.

Dabbashi said the government needed more time to assess the security situation in Libya and its ability to monitor its borders.

Western diplomats said issues the NTC had suggested it would like NATO to help with, including border security, fell outside the U.N. mandate to protect civilians and enforce a no-fly zone.

"The job was to protect civilians and from NATO's point of view, that mission has been accomplished," a diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "There's no point in delaying termination of the mandate."

(Source: :  REUTERS By Barry Malone and Maria Golovnina) 

Rami Al-Shaheibi and Kim Gamel/ Associated Press

Tripoli, Libya— Moammar Gadhafi's blood-streaked body was stashed in a commercial freezer at a shopping center Friday as Libyans tried to keep it away from angry crowds as they figure out where to bury the longtime dictator.

The makeshift provisions for the corpse reflected the disorganization and confusion that has surrounded Gadhafi's death. Accounts of how he died after being captured by revolutionary fighters remained contradictory, and the top U.N. rights official raised concerns he was shot to death in custody.

His burial had been planned for Friday, in accordance with Islamic traditions calling for quick interment. But the interim government delayed it, saying the circumstances of his death still had to be determined. Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam also said authorities are "debating right now what the best place is to bury him."

An AP correspondent saw the body at the shopping center in the coastal city of Misrata, home of the fighters who killed the ousted leader a day earlier in his hometown of Sirte.

The body, stripped to the waist and wearing beige trousers, was laid on a bloodied mattress on the floor of an emptied-out room-sized freezer where restaurants and stores in the center normally keep perishables. A bullet hole was visible on the left side of his head — with the bullet still lodged in his head, according to the presiding doctor — and in the center of his chest and stomach. His hair was matted and dried blood streaks his arms and head.

Outside the shopping center, hundreds of civilians from Misrata jostled to get inside for a peek at the body, shouting, "God is great," and, "We want to see the dog."

Bashir Ali, a commander from the Misrata military operations room, said the burial would be in a secret location to avoid revenge attacks. "Gadhafi hurt a lot of people and many will want to find his body for revenge, so we need to make sure he is not found," he said.

The 69-year-old Gadhafi was captured wounded but alive, and there have been contradictory accounts of how and when he received his fatal wounds. New video emerged Friday of a bloodied Gadhafi being taunted and beaten by the fighters who pulled him out of a drainage tunnel following clashes in his hometown of Sirte on Thursday.

"More details are needed to ascertain whether he was killed in some form of fighting or was executed after his capture," said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, calling the images of Gadhafi's last moments very disturbing.

Gadhafi's capture came when revolutionary fighters overwhelmed him and his last die-hard loyalists in Sirte, seizing control of the regime's last major bastion after a heavily fought, weekslong siege. Exact details of his final hours remain unclear.

According to most accounts from fighters on the ground and their commanders, Gadhafi was in a convoy trying to flee, when NATO airstrikes hit two of the vehicles. Then revolutionary forces moved in and clashed with the loyalists with Gadhafi for several hours. Gadhafi and his bodyguards fled their cars and took refuge in a nearby drainage tunnel. Fighters pursued and clashed with them, and in the end, Gadhafi emerged from tunnel and was grabbed by fighters.

New footage posted on Facebook shows the moments when Gadhafi was dragged by revolutionary fighters up the hill to their vehicles. The young men screaming, "Moammar, you dog!" beat the confused-looking Gadhafi, who wipes at blood covering the left side of his head and neck and left shoulder.

Gadhafi gestures to the young men to be patient, and says, "What's going on?" as he wipes fresh blood from his temple and glances at his palm. A young fighter later is shown carrying a boot and screaming, "This is Moammar's shoe! This is Moammar's shoe! Victory! Victory!"

The next point that most accounts agree upon is that Gadhafi died about 30-40 minutes later as he was being taken in an ambulance to Misrata. A coroners report said he bled to death from a shot to the head, and he also had shots to the chest and belly. Accounts have been confused, however, over where and how those fatal shots were suffered.

Most commanders and fighters who were at the scene with whom the Associated Press has spoken say that when he was captured, Gadhafi had already suffered the wounds that would lead to his death. That would mean that in the video, Gadhafi would have a bullet imbedded in his head, another in his chest and a third near his belly button. Yet, he is seen upright, talking and has the strength to struggle back, and there is no blood on his chest or belly. At one point, his shirt is pulled up to his chest, but no belly wound is visible.

Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril gave a different account Thursday, saying the fatal wounds were suffered later, when Gadhafi had been taken to the ambulance. As it set off for Misrata, the vehicle was caught in crossfire between revolutionaries and Gadhafi loyalists.

Information Minister Mahmoud Shammam mirrored this version Friday, saying the wounds came later, after his capture. "It seems like the bullet was a stray and it could have come from the revolutionaries or the loyalists," Shammam said. "The problem is everyone around the event is giving his own story."

But other fighters, commanders and witnesses have not spoken of any such crossfire or further clashes. Siraq al-Hamali, a 21- year-old fighter, told AP that he rode in the vehicle carrying Gadhafi as it left Sirte and did not mention coming under fire. He said by the time they reached a field hospital 20 miles outside Sirte, Gadhafi had died of wounds he already had.

"I really wanted him alive and everybody did, but he was destined to die and we could do nothing to change that," he said. "He won't be missed, and that's all for the best and let's get on with our lives."

One of Gadhafi's sons, Muatassim, was also killed in Sirte, but the fate of Gadhafi's one-time heir apparent Seif al-Islam was unclear. Some Libyan officials said he had been wounded and was being held in a hospital in Zlitan. But Shammam said Friday that Seif al-Islam's whereabouts were not confirmed, leaving open the possibility he escaped.

Many Libyans awoke after a night of jubilant celebration and celebratory gunfire with hope for the future but also concern that their new rulers, the National Transitional Council, might repeat the mistakes of the past.

Khaled Almslaty, a 42-year-old clothing vendor in Tripoli, said he wished Gadhafi had been captured alive.

"But I believe he got what he deserved because if we prosecuted him for the smallest of his crimes, he would be punished by death," he said. "Now we hope the NTC will accelerate the formation of a new government and ... won't waste time on irrelevant conflicts and competing for authority and positions."

Thousands of people converged for Friday prayers on Martrys' Square, formerly known as Green Square and the site from which Gadhafi made many defiant speeches trying to rally support as the uprising against him turned into a civil war.

One group of men danced and hoisted the country's new tricolor flag, chanting slogans against Syrian President Bashar Assad, who also faces an uprising against his rule as part of the Arab Spring that has also seen the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia ousted.

"It's your turn Bashar, zenga, zenga, dar, dar," they chanted.

"Zenga, zenga, dar, dar" is Arabic for "alley by alley, house by house," a phrase used by Gadhafi in his last months in power, referring to how his forces would hunt down those who rose up against him.

Women, who wore headscarves and prayed in a separate section, hoisted a banner that said, "It's a new morning without the colonel," using Gadhafi's military designation.

The governing National Transitional Council said interim leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil will formally declare liberation on Saturday in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the revolution began in mid-February. The NTC has said it will form a new interim government within a month of liberation and will hold elections within eight months.

Source:  The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20111021/NATION/110210421/Gadhafi-body-stashed-in-shopping-center-freezer#ixzz1bksMEnA0

The United States and United Nations have condemned a car-bomb attack on a government compound in Mogadishu which killed over 70 people in the deadliest attack by Somalia's Shebab rebels.

Witnesses described the carnage from Tuesday's attack as the worst they had seen in Mogadishu since Somalia plunged into chaos two decades ago and said the devastation resembled scenes from World War II.
The suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the compound housing four ministries at a strategic crossroads, two months after the Al Qaeda-linked rebels dismantled all their positions in the capital.

Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed condemned the attack which he said claimed "more than 70 people and (left) 150 injured; most of them were young students."
"I am extremely shocked and saddened by this cruel and inhumane act of violence against the most vulnerable in our society," he said in a statement.
"At this time, when the country is in the midst of a worsening humanitarian crisis, the enemy could not have attacked the Somali people at a worst time," the president added.
The International Committee for the Red Cross said around 90 people had been hospitalised at Mogadishu's Medina hospital.

Most of the casualties were reported to be civilians, with local residents saying the bomb went off as students were queueing for scholarships offered by Turkey.
The United States and United Nations were swift to join in the condemnation, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton describing the attack as a "cowardly act of terrorism" that "again demonstrates al-Shabaab's complete disregard for human life and Somalia's future."

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon expressed shock at the deadly bombing.
"It is incomprehensible that innocents are being senselessly targeted," Ban was quoted as saying by spokesman Martin Nesirky.
"The secretary general is appalled by the vicious suicide bomb attack targeting government offices and ministries in Mogadishu today."
Somali police spokesman Abdullahi Hassan Barise said the attacker was a Kenyan national, but a Shebab-owned radio denied the suicide bomber was Kenyan, identifying him instead as a Somali.

The scene of the attack looked "like something from World War II. This was total devastation," said local resident Abdullahi Aptidon.
"It was a powerful explosion and at first I thought it was a landmine, but the magnitude of the explosion made me imagine something different. This is the worst tragedy since civil war began in 1991."

According to witnesses, the bomber managed to sneak deep into Mogadishu under the cover of transporting displaced civilians from a nearby camp.
A Shebab official who did want to be named said one of their fighters carried out the attack.
"One of our Mujahidin made the sacrifice to kill TFG officials, the African Union troops and other informers who were in the compound," he said.
Tuesday's attack was the deadliest by the Shebab since multiple bombings in Kampala killed at least 76 people in July 2010.
It was also their bloodiest in Somalia since the group formed around five years ago, largely in response to Ethiopia's occupation.
In a surprise move, the Shebab abandoned their positions in Mogadishu in early August, after years of attempting and failing to break the AU's defences and take over the capital.

They had vowed however that it was a tactical move and that their struggle against the Western-backed Somali government would continue.
They pulled back to areas they already controlled in the south and west and observers had warned that the Shebab could be reverting to hit-and-run guerrilla tactics.
"Although the extremists have left the capital, it is very difficult to prevent these types of terrorist attacks which we have consistently warned are likely to be on the increase," said Augustine Mahiga, the UN representative for Somalia, also condemning the attack.

AU and pro-government forces had re-asserted their authority over most of the capital and the Shebab's withdrawal had led to a relative lull in violence.
The Shebab have rekindled their insurgency on several fronts almost simultaneously, with clashes also reported in western and southern regions.
They launched an attack late Monday in the city of Dhusamareb, which lies in western Somalia near the border with Ethiopia and is the main stronghold of Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa, a Sufi militia allied to the government.

The UN refuge agency also reported violence in Dhobley, a town on Somalia's southern border with Kenya and said the clashes were "further exacerbating the already severe humanitarian situation."

"We have received initial, unconfirmed reports of deaths and scores of injured people," said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
The UN Security Council last week urged the AU to increase its 9,000 troops propping up the Somali government.
The Horn of African country has lacked a central authority since plunging into a deadly civil war with the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre.
Somalia is also the worst affected country by a harsh drought that has left some 13 million people in the Horn of Africa facing starvation.

Civilians pouring out of Moamer Kadhafi's hometown Sirte on Tuesday said the horror of the battle for the city finally forced them to conquer their fear of the besieging new regime forces and leave.

Streams of vehicles crammed with families and piled high with their possessions queued at the succession of checkpoints on the coastal highway out of Sirte to have their belongings searched and their identities checked by suspicious National Transitional Council troops.
NTC fighters manning the checkpoints made no secret of their disdain for the residents of a city which was so privileged under the ousted regime and where loyalty to the Kadhafis ran deep.

Farak Mussa, whose blue minivan was carrying his family of eight jammed in beside mattresses and suitcases, said he had held out for days for fear of the NTC fighters but the intensity of the clashes had finally forced him to take a chance.

"We were afraid to come out because they (Kadhafi loyalists) told us that the NTC would cut our throats.
"But we couldn't stay because of the bombing -- we had to take the risk. Why is NATO bombing us?" he asked.
The alliance said it carried out no strikes in Sirte on Monday although its warplanes did strike two targets around the city the previous day.
And fierce fighting erupted on the front line on the western side of Sirte on Monday after what NTC forces said was a rocket and rocket-propelled grenade barrage against their positions by Kadhafi forces inside the city.

Salem Hamees, who was leaving with his extended family, said: "Our house was hit by a bomb. It destroyed three rooms. We were lucky we were in the other rooms.
"We don't know where it came from. The NATO bombing is scary. It is all scary. There is no difference between their bombs."
Both men said their vehicles had been repeatedly stopped and searched by NTC troops as they travelled out of the city with their families.
"We have been stopped at five checkpoints and searched every time," said Mussa.

But NTC fighter Mohammed Shahomi had little sympathy for the long line of frightened families waiting to undergo another inspection.
"They are all Kadhafi loyalists," he said, gesturing at the queue of crammed vehicles.
"But when NATO dropped bombs near them, they left -- they know it's serious now.
"You think they are leaving because they believe in the revolution? They are just scared."

The fleeing civilians all spoke of an increasingly desperate situation inside the city as their food supplies ran out.
An International Committee of the Red Cross team managed to deliver some desperately needed medical supplies into Sirte on Monday despite the fighting.
But the persistent exchanges prevented it from carrying out a more detailed assessment of the needs, the ICRC said.
"ICRC staff crossed the front line with a fully loaded truck from the west side of Sirte," the statement said.

"Fifty oxygen cylinders and other items required for hospital care were handed over to medical staff and representatives of civil society."
A Dutch nurse who had been working in the city's Ibn Sina hospital was also evacuated.
Team leader Hichem Khadraoui said: "The situation on the ground was very tense with ongoing fighting.

"Under such conditions, we had to limit ourselves -- after obtaining clearances from all the parties concerned -- to bringing in the most urgently needed humanitarian aid without further assessing needs. We hope to return soon."
Khadraoui had led a previous mission into Sirte on Saturday during which the hospital came under rocket fire when NTC fighters surrounded Kadhafi forces in a nearby showpiece conference centre.