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How the British Invented Julian Assange

2024-07-07

[Substack] POP QUIZ: How did Julian Assange first become famous? ANSWER: In 2007, Assange and his new Wikileaks website helped destabilize Kenya. Assange interfered in Kenya’s general election, helping to trigger a bloodbath that killed more than 1,100 Kenyans. Assange freely admitted his role in the Kenyan color revolution. In 2010, he boasted to The Guardian that Wikileaks had "changed the result" of Kenya's 2007 election. Such operations, said Assange, were part of Wikileaks' "important" "global role." Of course, Assange was exaggerating, overinflating his own importance. He obviously did not change the result of Kenya’s election singlehandedly. Assange accomplished this only with massive help from a sovereign government. Kenya is a former British colony and its 2007 color revolution appears to have been a British operation. Wittingly or unwittingly, Assange synchronized his efforts with those of the British Foreign Office and George Soros. I have previously written about Soros' ties to the British establishment. British Cut-Out? On April 20, 2019, Martin Minns of The Star (Kenya) wrote an in-depth investigative report in which he revealed—among other things—that Wikileaks.org was registered in Nairobi in October 2006. It shared a PO Box with Mars Group Kenya, an NGO partly funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). Mars Group Kenya was founded by Mwalimu Mati and his wife Jayne in December 2006. Mati had formerly headed the Kenya office of Transparency International, a Soros-funded "anti-corruption" group based in Berlin. Mati thus had strong links to the British government and to Soros’s NGO network. He was perfectly placed to act as a go-between—a cut-out—between Assange and the other participants in Kenya’s forthcoming color revolution. Much evidence suggests that this is exactly the role Mati played in the operation. The Kroll Report Assange boasts that he triggered Kenya's 2007 color revolution by releasing a secret report from Kroll Associates UK Limited, a private intelligence firm in London. The report accused former Kenyan president Daniel Arap Moi of massive corruption. By accusing Moi, the Kroll report cast a shadow on sitting president Mwai Kibaki—who was running for reelection with Moi’s endorsement. Wikileaks published the Kroll report on August 30, 2007. The UK newspaper The Guardian showcased the story the next day. The Star (Kenya) later quoted Assange saying that he had chosen the release date for "political timing"; that the leaked report "swung the election" by "shifting the vote 10 per cent"; and that Assange believed his actions had "changed the world."

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Africa Horn

Kenya is closing gap in repayment of Chinese loans

2022-10-25

[Garowe] Kenya’s loans to China have drooped for the first time in a decade, this is according to data from the National Treasury that reveals a drop from $6.83 billion in June to $7.05 in 2021 and $3 billion in 2016. This can be attributed to the Asian powerhouse’s adaptation of a new cautious lending strategy to the continent. In 2002 to the National Treasury, public records reveal that Chinese loans to Kenya dropped slightly. The erratic drop in Chinese debt comes at a time when both World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have stepped up lending to Kenya, firming the institutions’ grip on the country’s economy. The East African economic powerhouse is Beijing the largest bilateral creditor since 2015. These loans have been used to fund the development of mega infrastructures like the Standard Gauge Railway line. In 2020 during the peak of COVID-19, Kenya was among the 20 countries listed by the IMF as being at high risk of, debt distress. The IMF listing of the 20 African countries triggered a response from the China Eximbank and China Development Bank, who are the two main policy banks that have adopted i hardline stand on lending terms to African states. In 2021 Chinese President Xi Jinping in a video revealed that his country in the next three years, would cut the headline amount of money it supplies to Africa by a third to $40 billion and, he implied, redirect lending away from large infrastructure towards a new emphasis on SMEs, green projects and private investment flows. Chatham House, a UK think-tank said "China is moving away from this high-volume, high-risk paradigm into one where deals are struck on their own merit, at a smaller and more manageable scale than before," an analysis of China’s lending to Africa. Lower funding to Africa, local analysts say, could be a pointer that Beijing is starting to see signs of reduced benefits from the cash it commits in the continent." Over the last two decades, the Asian giant has positioned itself as a lead financier of first resort for many African e countries in need of infrastructural development. Recent research by the College of William & Mary conducted in September this year reveals that African countries received 42 percent of all Chinese official development assistance between 2000 and 2017. CHINESE LOAN GENESIS IN KENYA Kenya’s appetite for Chinese loans started in 2009 under the late President Mwai Kibaki who borrowed to finance the country’s first Superhighway. Thika Superhighway was constructed at the tune of KSH 32 billion. China has funded two railways, two ports, and 23 road projects in Kenya since 2009. This has been carried out by China Road and Bridge Corporation, a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company. They include the $3.5 billion standard gauge railway, a $398 million oil terminal at the Mombasa port, and road projects such as the Southern and Eastern Bypass in Nairobi.

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-Short Attention Span Theater-

African software to prevent fraud in US elections

2016-11-07

[DeutscheWelle] The Kenyan non-profit company Ushahidi has launched a website which lets voters report irregularities on polling day. The creators want to promote transparency - with a tool they invented in a time of bloodshed. Our technological edge continues to slip away. Kenya was in turmoil in late 2007 and early 2008. Mwai Kibaki had been declared the winner of a controversial presidential election which reeked of fraud and corruption on both sides. Violence erupted between different ethnic groups throughout the country that killed at least 1,000 people. It was hard for the media to keep track because many of the murders happened in remote regions. It was then that a group of tech-savvy Kenyans got together and developed Ushahidi, a crowdsourcing software that let people report cases of violence and tracked them on a map. This provided a far more complete picture of the situation than any news outlet had given at the time. Ushahidi, which means testimony in Kiswahili, has come a long way since then. It's now a multinational software enterprise headquartered in Nairobi with around 30 employees working in eight countries. Their technology has been used for all kinds of purposes - from earthquake response to journalism. And this year, it will help monitor the US elections. From Kenya to the United States Ushahidi has put up a special website, where voters can report any irregularities or problems they may encounter at the polling stations. They can, for example, flag up that ballot papers have run out or that disabled people have a hard time accessing the polling booth - or that there's nothing wrong at all. Ushahidi collects and maps all this information to visualize the bigger picture. If some of Rantburg's clever computer people would take a look at that and let us know if it's what it claims to be, I would be grateful. "My real hope is that on Wednesday we look at the report and that 99.9 percent of reports say: 'Everything went great!'," says Nat Manning, Ushahidi's Chief Operations Officer who's based in the Socialist paradise of San Francisco ...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964... The existing structures to prevent voter fraud in the US already seem quite fail-safe. The different states and parties as well as outside observers all independently monitor the polling. But Manning thinks Ushahidi can still add to the process. "It allows regular citizens to raise their voice. It puts a lot more eyes out there. And importantly, it creates a feeling of transparency and engagement," he told DW.

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Africa Subsaharan

Kenya Attacks Revive Specter of Ethnic Violence

2014-06-23

[AnNahar] Six years after Kenya erupted into ferocious ethnic battles and post-election violence, security guard John Mboya is fearful once again, after twin massacres on the coast brought political rivalries to the surface. "When the leaders argue, it is people like me who will suffer if a fight starts," bemoaned Mboya, recalling the intensity of 2007-8 violence, when communities in his crowded slum in the capital Nairobi divided along tribal lines and turned on each other after disputed elections. "People are very worried, they don't understand what will happen," he said. Attacks last week on the coastal Mpeketoni district left at least 60 dead and were claimed by Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab murderous Moslems, though President Uhuru Kenyatta blamed "well-planned, orchestrated and politically motivated ethnic violence" carried out by "local political networks". The reaction served to highlight the intensity of the rivalry between Kenyatta and his old rival Raila Odinga, a former prime minister who failed in a bid for the presidency last year. "Kenya is on such a knife-edge that the intensifying prospect of instability has millions of Kenyans deeply worried," The Star newspaper said in an editorial. Bitter memories are still fresh from 2007, when elections escalated into ethnic conflict in which more than 1,200 people were killed, violence for which Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto face crimes against humanity charges at the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... (ICC). "It is certainly not inevitable the political rhetoric could descend into violence, but it is possible, and that is the worrying part," said Cedric Barnes of the International Crisis Group. Externally, there are major threats from Somalia's Shabaab, who have carried out a string of Dire Revenge™ attacks for Kenya's military role in southern Somalia, including last year's siege of the Westgate shopping mall that left 67 people dead. The Mpeketoni attacks, however, were unprecedented: heavily armed turbans storming an urban center deep inside Kenya, and fleeing before ill-equipped security could react, echoing tactics used by Nigeria's Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... Islamist myrmidons. Western security officials -- and the Shabaab themselves -- are adamant it was them, albeit with local Kenyan knowledge from recruits or Islamist supporters on the ground. "The snuffies have us in a bind, divided and inattentive to the larger picture," former deputy president Musalia Mudavadi wrote in Kenya's media. The gunnies appeared to choose the target and timing of the attack for maximum impact. "The target was ideal if they wanted to divide Kenyans," one Western security official said, noting it targeted a town settled decades ago by the Kikuyu people, the same tribe as Kenyatta. "The president took it as an attack on his people," the security source added. Tensions were already high following Odinga's announcement last month that he planned to stage mass anti-government rallies on July 7, the anniversary of protests for multi-party democracy in the 1990s. Foreign diplomats say the leadership feels genuinely threatened by Odinga's planned rallies. Anti-western sentiment has grown in some quarters, over the backing for the ICC trials and Odinga, who has also recently returned from several months in the U.S. On Wednesday, youths torched effigies of Odinga in central Nairobi along with British and American flags. Despite efforts to heal the wounds of the ethnic killings, tensions still run deep between communities, with many key grievances that fed into the violence -- most notably land ownership rights and claims that minorities are being marginalized -- still unresolved. The 2007-8 violence erupted when Odinga accused then president Mwai Kibaki of rigging his way to re-election, but what began as political riots quickly turned into ethnic killings of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, the country's largest single group. In turn, they launched reprisal attacks, plunging Kenya into its worst wave of violence since independence in 1963. Kenya's influential Daily Nation newspaper has called for leaders to focus on the country, warning that recent attacks should not be "used as an excuse to muzzle the opposition or stifle debate". "Working together to douse the flames consuming us all is far more urgent than doggedly sticking to our own positions," it warned.

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Africa Horn

Kenyan President Takes 20-Percent Pay Cut

2014-03-09

[An Nahar] Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has announced he and his deputy William Ruto will be taking a 20-percent pay cut and ministers' salaries will be reduced by 10 percent in a bid to rein in the country's soaring public wage bill. The pay cuts will take place "with immediate effect," Kenyatta said in a speech on Friday, adding that the current spending levels were unsustainable. The government will also limit foreign travel to only the most essential trips, according to Kenyatta. "Wastage in my government will be significantly reduced," he said. "We are spending 400 billion shillings ($4.6 billion, 3.3 billion euros) every year paying salaries; it leaves us only from our own resources a figure of 200 billion shillings to transform Kenya," Kenyatta said. "This is why we are saying that is the ratio which is not sustainable... We need to deal with this monster if we are to develop this nation." The president urged the country's politicians to follow his lead and also lower their salaries, ranked among the highest in the world and long a source of discontent among ordinary Kenyans. "We hope that other arms of government will follow suit and have their salaries reviewed. The MPs have heard and know what Kenyans want," Kenyatta said. MPs last year reluctantly took a 40-percent pay cut, bringing their monthly pay checks down to around 532,000 shillings ($6,100, 4,400 euros). The politicians had initially voted to give themselves a pay rise, sparking protests from activists, before agreeing to accept the salary reduction ordered by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission in return for other benefits. Kenya's politicians also sparked controversy in 2012 by voting to give themselves a sendoff bonus of $110,000, a proposal that was vetoed by then-president Mwai Kibaki. According to the Standard daily, Kenyatta, whose family is one of the continent's wealthiest, will see his monthly income reduced to about 989,600 shillings, while Ruto's will be lowered to 841,500 shillings. The combined savings will leave the state some 5.5 million shillings a year better off, the Standard said. The minimum wage in Nairobi for a manual laborer is around 8,500 shillings a month.

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Africa Horn

Separatist group told to surrender or face arrest

2012-10-21

[Pak Daily Times] Kenya on Saturday told members of a separatist group to surrender or face arrest as the east African country intensified a crackdown on the movement ahead of an election next year. The Mombasa Republican Council's (MRC) campaign for the secession of Kenya's Indian Ocean coastal strip, a tourist hotspot and trade hub, is just one of many concerns ahead of the March election, the first since the 2007 vote after which some 1,200 people were killed and thousands were displaced. "I am asking all MRC officials and members who are still out there to surrender voluntarily and also surrender their weapons this weekend," Coast province commissioner Samuel Kielele said at a gathering for national day celebrations in Mombasa. "We know them and we will go for them if they don't heed this call. We will go for them and arrest them," he said. President Mwai Kibaki also said his government would take decisive action against those who "issued threats of secession or those who threaten our security".

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Africa Horn

Top Kenyans to face trial at ICC

2012-01-24

This will be quite the bone for Carla del Ponte... THE HAGUE: International Criminal Court judges on Monday ordered four prominent Kenyans, including two potential presidential candidates, to stand trial for allegedly orchestrating a deadly wave of violence after their country’s disputed 2007 presidential election. Among the four suspects sent for trial were Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and former Education Minister William Ruto, who both are planning to run for the presidency this year. Kenyatta, 50, is the son of Kenya’s founding president, Jomo Kenyatta, and the country’s richest citizen, with a personal fortune of half a billion dollars. Cheez, Bob in Zimbabwe does much better than that. Ruto is a former ally of Prime Minister Raila Odinga, but the two had a falling out — partly over Ruto’s insistence on making his own presidential bid this year. More than 1,000 people were killed in postelection violence in Kenya after police ejected observers from the center where votes were being tallied and the electoral body declared President Mwai Kibaki the winner. Ruto was ordered to stand trial with radio broadcaster Joshua Arap Sang for crimes against humanity allegedly targeting Kibaki supporters. Another suspect, former Minister of Industrialization Henry Kiprono Kosgey, was cleared of charges. In a separate case, Kenyatta will stand trial alongside Cabinet Secretary Francis Muthaura for alleged crimes against humanity directed at Odinga supporters. A third suspect in the case, former police commissioner Maj. Gen. Mohammed Hussein Ali, was cleared of the charges. No date has been set for the trials. The suspects ordered to stand trial will remain free in Kenya until the case starts, sometime in about 2024... but Trendafilova warned them they could face arrest if they attempt to whip up fresh violence. Prosecutors have said the decision to launch an ICC investigation in Kenya should help ease tensions, but there are fears a decision on prosecuting the suspects could have the opposite effect and spark renewed fighting. “It is our utmost desire that the decisions issued by this chamber today bring peace to the people of the Republic of Kenya and prevent any sort of hostilities,” Trendafilova said. It’s unclear whether the case could block Ruto and Kenyatta’s presidential ambitions, since government officials have issued conflicting statements on whether they will remain eligible to run. Trendafilova stressed that the decisions do not mean guilty verdicts against the suspects, only that there is sufficient evidence to send them to trial. Rights groups welcomed the ruling. According to two recent opinion polls, a majority of Kenyans support the ICC process. Most citizens have little faith in their own judiciary, widely perceived as corrupt and choking on a backlog of cases. The ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, launched his investigation in 2010 only after Kenya’s parliament failed to agree to set up a national tribunal to prosecute perpetrators of postelection violence. Both Kenyatta and Ruto come from powerful ethnic groups. Kenyatta is Kikuyu, the ethnic group with the highest numbers and the one that has produced two of the country’s three presidents. Ruto is a Kalenjin, the ethnic group that produced Kenya’s longest-serving president, Daniel arap Moi, who recruited many of his fellow Kalenjin into the security services.

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Africa Subsaharan

Raila flies out into Mugabe firestorm

2011-04-30

A visit to Zim-bob-we by Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Friday has provoked vicious attacks from state media. The government-owned press launched attacks on Mr Odinga after he accepted an invitation to a congress for a party led by a fierce rival of President Bob Muggsy Mugabe. Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case... Mr Odinga's office in Nairobi confirmed that he will officially open Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party congress in the second city of Bulawayo on Friday. He will first pay a courtesy call on President Robert Mugabe of Zim-bob-we at State House, Harare, before travelling to Barbourfields Stadium in Bulawayo. Mr Odinga is expected back in Kenya later in the day. While Mr Odinga has agreed to speak at the MDC meeting, it is not clear whether Mr Mugabe might try to keep Mr Odinga out of the country. However, The wishy-washy However... State media propaganda against the PM's party has gone into overdrive in what analysts say is a reflection of widening cracks in Zim-bob-we's coalition government. The state owned Herald newspaper, which usually reflects the thinking in President Mugabe's Zanu PF party, described Mr Odinga as a merchant of violence. "Who then is this Raila Odinga?" asked George Rugare Chingarande in the paper's opinion pages. Dictatorial streak "Raila Odinga is a political schizophrenic. His rhetoric oozes with (sic) refined contemporary democracy dogma but his actions reveal a very violent and dictatorial streak. "The exorbitant nature of this obsessive preoccupation with violence is rivalled by a few in modern day African. His proclivity for violence can be traced to his student days." Mr Mugabe's sympathisers have never forgiven Mr Odinga for calling for the 87 year-old leader's exit in a 2008 interview with BBC. In the interview, the Kenyan Prime Minister called on African leaders to push Mugabe out of power because he was a stumbling block to political reform in Zim-bob-we. Mr Mugabe however reacted angrily, saying Mr Odinga was not welcome in Zim-bob-we. The Zim-bob-wean power-sharing deal that brought opposition leader Tsvangirai into government was modelled on the Kenyan agreement after the disputed 2007 elections that saw Mr Odinga become prime minister while Mr Mwai Kibaki retained the presidency. The MDC congress whose theme will be "United Winning Covenant for Real Change" started on Thursday afternoon and ends on Saturday. All the executive positions will be contested at the congress except the presidency and party leadership which will remain in the hands of Mr Tsvangirai. Zim-bob-we's unity government was also formed after contested elections in 2008. Mr Mugabe declared victory in a one-man presidential runoff after a violent campaign against the MDC and its supporters. This led to the signing of the Global Political Agreement, similar to Kenya's National Accord, that created the unity government.

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Africa Subsaharan

Many faces of Africa's Big Men

2011-02-02

[Daily Nation (Kenya)] African heads of state and government gathered together can be quite a spectacle. Some make you suppress a laugh, others make you stifle a yawn, and yet others make you want to cry. They cut a multiplicity of images at the Assembly of the African Union's 16th Ordinary Session on Sunday. Any keen journalist would not want to take his or her eyes off their excellencies before coming up with a verdict. My eyes come to rest on Meles Zenawi, the AU host and Prime Minister of Ethiopia. I see what western news hounds see in Cote d'Ivoire's Gbagbo; I see a strongman. However hard he tries to exchange pleasantries with his colleagues and members of their entourage on the floor, his I'm-a no-nonsense-man image cannot be concealed. His fast receding hairline, that has left an airport-like patch on his scalp, works to reinforce the image. My eyes reluctantly leave him and settle on Yoweri Museveni, the Ugandan President who refuses to let go of Migingo Island. I see another strongman. He needed not make any effort to show all and sundry that he was at the conference for serious business and nothing else. I couldn't help but pity Ugandans who have had to endure him for two decades and are poised to do so for many more years to come. The fellow has not even attained the age of 70. Museveni will probably improve on the long record at the helm, set by Bob Muggsy Mugabe, ... who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case... President of Zimbabwe. Those clamouring for generation change should see the youthful Mugabe. Despite the rumours that good old Robert is in bad health, he looks years younger than his age. He walks straight and his face is bright. I can't rule out the man remaining in power till he is over a century old. Then there is of course, our very own Emilio Mwai Kibaki, Kenya's president. One word sums him up: aloof. Having reached for his seat, he remains faithful to the podium, hardly turning his head to look to the sides or even nod. From my corner in the press gallery, I keep wondering whether he is awake or merely struggling to be seen to be awake and following the proceedings. I give up. Over to Abdoulaye Wade, president of Senegal. Tired man, if there ever was one. Unlike his peer, brother Robert from Zimbabwe, the good old scholar is visibly tired, no matter how much he tries to hide it. As he makes his way to the washroom and back during the session, I wonder why he has chosen to hang on when there is a legion Senegalese ready to give their lives for his seat. After all, having risen so high, he can never lack a job. Is he not aware how busy Kenneth Kaunda, Jerry Rawlings, ... former lieutenant in the Ghanian air force, then military dictator for 11 years. He thought he was elected President-for-Life of Ghana in 1993, but was forced to step down his at the end of his term-limited second term when his proxy was defeated ... Thabo Mbeki or even Festus Mogae are? Goodluck Jonathan, the President of Nigeria is one lucky man. Flamboyance, his broad-brimmed hat, and perhaps the fame of the country he leads, make him stand out among his colleagues. Circumstances force him to remove the hat to wear a head phone for translation and this does him a great disservice. I hope he wins the April presidential poll so that he can continue gracing the African scene. Pierre Nkurunziza the president of Burundi is simply colourless. The youthful chief executive of the tiny country cuts an image of an uninspiring leader; almost looking intimidated. So much for youthful leaders. Things would probably be different were he the president of a massive landmass like the neighbouring DRC. And you can't fail to spot Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, president of Liberia. She is graceful. The only woman CEO of the 53-member organisation may inspire many of her gender to aim higher.

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-Short Attention Span Theater-

Kenyan women's group tells men: Make war? No s*x

2009-04-30

Thousands of Kenyan women vowed Wednesday to begin a weeklong sex strike to try to protest their country's bickering leadership, which they say threatens to revive the bloody chaos that convulsed the African country last year. Leaders from Kenya's largest and oldest group dedicated to women's rights, the Women's Development Organization, said they hope the boycott will persuade men to pressure the government to make peace. Eleven women's groups are participating in the strike. The groups have also called on the wives of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to abstain. It was not clear how either wife responded to the request. "We have looked at all issues which can bring people to talk and we have seen that sex is the answer," said Rukia Subow, chairman of the Women's Development Organization. "It does not know tribe, it does not have a (political) party and it happens in the lowest households." Too bad there's no goats' rights organization engaging in a similar strike - we might end this Islamofascist terrorist problem.

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Africa Horn

UN to host Somalia piracy conference in Kenya

2008-12-10

The United Nations said Tuesday that it would host a two-day international conference in Nairobi this week to discuss how to combat rampant piracy off Somalia. U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said the U.N. special representative for Somalia, Nairobi-based Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, confirmed that the parley in the Kenyan capital would bring together some 140 officials from 40 countries Wednesday and Thursday. Abdallah said the meeting would begin with a meeting of technical experts on Wednesday, followed the next day by a ministerial session with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki as keynote speaker. "It is clear that the problem of piracy is linked to the need for peace and stability in Somalia itself," Ould-Abdallah said. "We hope that this high-level conference will lead to greater international attention and cooperation between countries, regional and international organizations," he said. The conference coincides with the launch of the European Union's Operation Atalanta, an anti-piracy task force seeking to protect merchant ships from pirate attacks, off Somalia. Last week, the U.N. Security Council urged all countries and regional organizations with the necessary capacity to deploy naval ships and military aircraft off the Somali coast to fight piracy which is impeding U.N. efforts to feed millions of hungry civilians in the lawless, strife-torn country.

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Africa Horn

Somalia: 8 killed in capital Mogadishu clashes

2008-09-12

(SomaliNet) In fighting that erupted after Ethiopia-backed government troops raided a suspected rebel hideout at least eight people were killed in the Somali capital on Wednesday, residents said. Somali government troops and Islamist insurgents clashed using machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades in northern Mogadishu near a military camp, they said. "I saw four civilians and two Somali soldiers who were killed by mortar shells," said Hassan Abdullahi Abdulle, a resident. The Somali army said it killed two Islamist insurgents while three of its men were wounded in the clashes. "Two insurgents who were killed in the fighting were carried by their colleagues for burial after fighting stopped," Somali army spokesman Dahir Mohamed Hirsi told AFP. Residents said stray shells wounded at least 13 civilians -- many of them children -- in Huriwa, one of the most volatile districts in the seaside capital. Several residents confirmed the clashes that came after days of calm in a city that is contested between the UN-backed government and Islamists accused of links to Al-Qaeda. In Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian defence ministry said at least 15 insurgents died. "Fifteen Shebab (Islamist) insurgents were killed by the transitional government troops this afternoon in defensive measures taken after an attack on their military barracks in Mogadishu," it said in a statement. "Scores of others were injured while a number of weapons were captured during the attack," it added, but the veracity of the statement could not be confirmed. In Nairobi, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki pleaded with the world to help Somalia end nearly two decades of suffering that has been worsened by chronic food shortage. "Indeed, the recent developments in that country will require a new impetus in bringing all the parties in the conflict to a process of dialogue that will guarantee the people of Somalia peace and security that they so much desire," Kibaki said in a statement.

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