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Islamist extremists threatened to fight and kill peacekeepers to be deployed in Somalia, deepening fears of further turmoil in the lawless nation, as African leaders struggled to come up with a peace force.
In a video message posted on the website of the Somali Islamist movement, a hooded gunman warned that Somalia would become a graveyard for around 8,000 African troops planned to be deployed in the Horn of Africa nation.
“Somalia is not a place where you will earn a salary — it is a place where you will die,” said the gunman in the message posted on the official site of the Islamists, who were vanquished by Somali government troops backed by Ethiopian forces.
“The salary you are seeking will be used to transport your bodies,” added the gunman, carrying an AK 47 rifle, in a message whose authenticity could not be confirmed.
Behind the gunman, four others were seen armed with rocket launchers.
The stark warning came as Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed announced plans to organise a national broad-based reconciliation conference to bolster international efforts aimed at restoring peace in the lawless African nation.
Yusuf's government was set up in 2004 but had been forced to operate out of the provincial town of Baidoa until late December when the Ethiopian military intervened on its behalf and marched on Mogadishu.
US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer said threats would shake Washington's resolve to assist the new transitional government in stabilising the country.
“The situation in Somalia has been difficult and has been for some time,” she told reporters on the sidelines of the African Union summit in Ethiopia.
“They are trying to intimidate the AU and international community not to assist the people of Somalia.
“The extremists are not reflecting the will of the Somali people … We will not be intimidated.”
The Islamists, who fled before the arrival of government forces and their Ethiopian backers, had restored a degree of order to Mogadishu after last June crushing a collection of warlords who had been slugging it out in the capital for 16 years.
Government fighters and Ethiopian troops have since been the target of a series of hit-and-run attacks by rebels, including on the president's official residence.
Although the government declared victory, none of the top members of the Islamist movement, which vowed to wage guerrilla war, has been caught.
In Addis Ababa, African leaders attending the African Union summit scrambled to come up with about 8,000 forces to be deployed, with only a handful of countries having pledged to send troops. No timeline has been set for the deployment.
Washington and Brussels have pledged to support the troops, rejected from the outset by the Islamists, some of whom are accused of sheltering Al-Qaeda operatives.
The United States has launched two separate air raids in suspected Islamist hideouts in southern Somalia, but none has resulted in the death of extremists wanted for the 1998 bombing of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in the Kenyan coast city.
The 1993-95 United Nations' and United States' peace missions ended disastrously after the peacekeepers were forced to pull out in the face of sustained attacks by gunmen allied to Somali warlords.
Somalia has lacked an effective government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
More than 14 internationally-backed peace initiatives have failed to restore order in Somalia, home to about 10 million people who have suffered from frequent bouts of famine, droughts and floods.
