Somalia's hardline al-Shabaab insurgents has vowed to attack the capitals of both Burundi and Uganda, after rocket attacks by peacekeepers from these countries killed at least 30 people in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.
"We shall make their people cry! We'll attack Bujumbura and Kampala ... We will move our fighting to those two cities and we shall destroy them," Sheikh Ali Mohamed Hussein, a senior al-Shabaab commander, told
Reuters.
On Thursday, 35 rockets were fired into a market of Mogadishu, after al-Shabaab gunmen launched mortar shells at President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's plane, as he left the airport for a summit in Uganda. The group wants to put an end to Ahmed's fragile administration, which is backed by the UN, and impose its own strict version of Islamic law across the predominantly country.
This includes the shutting down of independent, more western orientated
media.
Al-Shabaab is accused of being al-Qaeda's proxy in the failed Horn of Africa state.
In the meantime, a spokesperson of the peacekeeping force in Somalia (AMISOM) denied that rockets were fired by the Burundian and Ugandan blue helmets. The peacekeeping force counts 2,500 solders from both countries.
"We did not shell any place ... We are investigating and the Somali government is investigating too," Ba-hoku said. "Al-Shabaab wants to drag us into their war ... they shell us and then they also shell Bakara, then they tell people there it was Amisom who killed civilians. We know their tactics."
