By Andrew Cawthorne NAIROBI, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The African Union condemned Somali rebel assaults on its peacekeepers as "calculated provocation" on Friday and vowed to fight any future attacks. Increasingly brazen Islamist insurgents have this month turned their fire on the AU peacekeepers, who number about 2,600 Ugandans and Burundians, with ambushes on bases and patrols. The Islamists, whom Washington links to al Qaeda, have recovered from a rout at the end of 2006 to re-take swathes of the south and pose a big threat to the U.N.-backed government. Analysts believe targeting AU troops is intended to deter further foreign intervention in the Horn of Africa nation and to portray the African force, known as AMISOM, as supporting the Somali government and its Ethiopian military backers. "The attacks were a calculated provocation ... intended to portray AMISOM as partisan in the ongoing conflict so its troops could easily become a target," AU special envoy for Somalia, Nicolas Bwakira, told a news conference. "The African Union is not in Somalia to fight or to be drawn into any conflict we are not part of. We are there as an impartial and neutral peacekeeping force." Witnesses say AU troops have, for the first time, been coming out of bases to attack rebel positions. And the Islamists earlier this week accused them of killing civilians with shells. That version has been spreading fast among Mogadishu residents, damaging the standing of the AU soldiers who had previously won kudos for providing health services. Bwakira said the AU mission, which is expecting another 850 Burundian soldiers next month, regretted any loss of civilian life but reserved the right to defend itself. "We cannot sit idle and allow our peacekeepers to be attacked and killed by those who oppose peace," he said. Civilians have borne the brunt of Somalia's nearly two-year insurgency, with nearly 10,000 dying since early 2007. The conflict in strategically sensitive Somalia, which looks across the Gulf of Aden to the Middle East, has compounded tensions in the always volatile Horn of Africa region. Feuding neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea back separate sides. Bwakira said the AU, whose troops have also failed to halt war in Sudan's Darfur region, would stay firm. "Our commitment to Somalia has not been dented or diminished in spite of the provocations of the insurgents," he said. In a violent week, even by Somalia's extreme standards, traumatised residents of Mogadishu have been streaming out in their thousands. The United Nations put the exodus at about 12,000 in the last few days, swelling an already one million strong population of internal refugees. Witnesses said on Friday the latest fighting between Islamists and Somali-Ethiopian forces near the presidential palace in Mogadishu killed another seven people and wounded eight others. "Gunfire turned the whole area into bright stars," resident Ali Farah said, describing how a shell landed on a house on Thursday night, killing a mother and her three children. (Additional reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu; Editing by Jon Boyle)
Somali refugees sleep in a hut after they survived a boat capsize off the southern Yemeni area of Rada September 24, 2008. Yemeni officials said five women and a child drowned ...
