Somali Islamists seize briefly Puntland town

MOGADISHU, Somalia - at least 25 people were killed Wednesday, when hundreds of Islamist insurgent fighters captured briefly a city in a northern region of Somalia which is usually relatively calm, an official said.

Islamists temporarily seized the city of Gal Gala, which is 25 miles (40 km) southwest of the port of Bosasso, the commercial centre of the Northern semi-autonomous region of Puntland, said the Puntland security Minister, GEN Yusuf Ahmed Khayr. He said control of the Government found the city.

Puntland is relatively quiet compared to workers in Somalia and assistance Centre-South foreign and businessmen are usually able to operate. This is the first attack of this magnitude, in Puntland this year although the region has battled Islamic militants in the mountainous region last year.

Khayr said five soldiers were killed in the attack in the morning on the city. Another official said earlier that nine were killed. He requested anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the press. The reason for this discrepancy was not immediately clear.

Both agreed six insurgents were killed during the initial when Islamist attack in an ambush a Government patrol firing grenades rocket propelled to their vehicles. But Government forces have launched a counterattack and killed fourteen insurgents more when they returned to the city, Khayr said.

It was impossible to verify if its account because the mobile network of the city was not working.

The insurgents are led by Sheik Ali impetuous, linked to the Mohamed Atom arms dealer, who criticized the United Nations to provide weapons to the al-Shabab militia in the South of Somalia. The city used to be a basis for the fighters of the atom.

Impetuous was a member of al-Itihad, an Islamist group active in Somalia in the 1990s. The Puntland police arrested him last year, but he was later released on bail.

Somalia has not had a Government for more than 20 years. The current phase of the civil war of the pits of the Islamist insurgents against a weak United Nations-backed Government, but the conflict is complicated by clan loyalty, corruption and the involvement of the regional rivals, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Islamists in Pakistan to protest against the bin Laden raid (Reuters) United States

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - most influential Islamist party urged his followers to organise demonstrations of mass Friday to demand their Government withdraws its support of the war on activism after commandos killed U.S. Osama bin Laden, near Islamabad.

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), one of the greatest political parties religion of the country, said that in the United States had violated the sovereignty of key ally Pakistan by sending its own forces in the town of garrison of Abbottabad to kill the al-Qaeda Chief.

Pakistan's support is essential to U.S. efforts against Islamic militants and also in the fight against the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan to fight.

"Even if there was no sympathy for the Americans, which would be dissipated after the way they were crushed and violated our sovereignty and our independence,"JI leader Syed Munawar Hasan told Reuters on Thursday.""

"We called everyone to organize peaceful demonstrations Friday in very large scale," he said. "Our first demand is... Pakistan should withdraw from the war against terrorism."

Anti-Americanism runs high in Pakistan, despite the billions of dollars in aid for nuclear weapons, poor country. Religious parties of Pakistan did not traditionally well at the ballot box, but they exert considerable influence in a country where Islam is more radicalized.

The war of the United States against militancy is unpopular in Pakistan, because of the perception of the civil dead against the attacks of drone against the suspected militants along the Afghan border.

But many people also criticize radical interpretation of Islam al-Qaeda and suicide bombers that lead his disciples and analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi said that any protests are likely to be more anti-états-Unis than Laden favour.

"I do not think that they (religious parties) will draw big crowds in gatherings." These events will put unlikely any large pressure on the Government to change course, "he says.

For the moment there some public protests in Pakistan against bin Laden killing early Monday to Abbottabad, 50 km (31 miles) northeast of Islamabad. A more violent activist of Pakistan groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba, held special prayers for the Chief of al-Qaeda and called for his death "martyrdom."

The fact that bin Laden was killed in Pakistan, after seemed y lived for several years, has embarrassed as many people in the Government and powerful country's spy agency.

"In Pakistan and its security apparatus became something of a laughing stock, with the media around the world highlighting the discovery of the man most wanted in the world to a military Academy in leading walking distance."," The News wrote in an editorial Thursday.

Some Pakistani saying that they were too concerned about the difficulties of living in a country with a troubled economy and chronic shortages of power to join with any type of events.

"There is no electricity, no gas, with the rise in inflation, making ends meet is difficult every day.".

"If our country was not mired with economic difficulties at this stage, perhaps us would require more answers from the Government or the United States, but now I no longer have big problems," said Sara Ahmed, an employee of the Government in the port of Karachi.

(Other reports by Zeeshan Haider in ISLAMABAD and KARACHI, mounting by Miral Fahmy Ahmed Sahar)