Ethnic violence kills at least 100 people in Somalia

by Hussein Ali Nur

About 100 people were reported killed yesterday in fighting between Puntland and the rival Somali territory of Somaliland, which accused Puntland's leader, now Somalia's president, of waging war on the area.

Abdullahi Yusuf, elected president Oct. 10, has pledged to work peacefully with breakaway Somaliland as he tries to restore order in Somalia, which descended into anarchy in 1991 after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted.

But his election alarmed Somaliland, hostile to a man long seen as its arch foe in the neighboring autonomous territory of Puntland. It warned Yusuf Oct. 12 against any attempted aggression and said it was on alert against any move to reunite Somaliland with the rest of Somalia.

''Full mobilization of our soldiers is going on and will continue until Abdullahi Yusuf's forces leave our territory," a spokesman for the Somaliland president said yesterday, adding that fighting had stopped because of heavy rains.

A spokesman for Somaliland's Office of Defense said the death toll from the fighting, which erupted Friday at the village of Adi-Addeye, about 20 miles north of Las Anod, had risen to 109.

It was not clear late yesterday whether that figure referred to combat casualties or civilians or both. The spokesman said nine Somaliland soldiers also were killed in the fighting.

Las Anod has been a flash point during previous flare-ups between the two armies. Puntland and Somaliland have fought sporadic clashes for years over the ownership of several eastern areas of Somaliland claimed by Puntland's leaders as their own, on the basis of ethnicity.

But the cause of the fresh bout of fighting was not clear, with both sides accusing each other of starting it. Matt Bryden, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank, said Yusuf's elevation to the presidency had escalated tensions between the two territories. ''We at ICG predicted this was going to happen," he said. ''It is probably going to get worse unless dialogue [on the disputed areas] is started."

Yusuf said through his spokesman that he hoped the two territories would stop fighting and pursue dialogue. ''The president is very much concerned about the unfortunate clashes that happened yesterday,the head of Somalia's presidential press service, Yusuf Mohamed Ismail, said.

Yusuf was elected head of state by Somali legislators after two years of difficult peace talks held in Kenya because of insecurity at home. Yusuf, who has not been able to return to Somalia because of the continued insecurity, has asked the African Union to send 20,000 peacekeepers to disarm the militias controlling much of the failed state.

Ismail said Yusuf wanted an international fact-finding mission to establish the cause of the fighting and facilitate a cease-fire. Yusuf said in a letter sent to neighboring states and the United Nations on Friday that Puntland had told him Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991, was waging ''an all-out war."