2 hours ago

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Eritrea on Saturday slammed the United States for providing weapons to Somalia’s beleaguered government in its battle against Islamist insurgents.

Washington announced on Thursday that it was sending the Horn of Africa nation an "urgent supply" of weapons and ammunition at the request of Mogadishu as armed groups closed in on the transitional government’s strongholds.

"US misguided acts of intervention and supply of weapons have not, in the past years, advanced the cause of stability in Somalia," the Eritrean foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.

"A repeat of those measures will not produce positive results but only aggravate and prolong the crisis," it added.

On May 7, the Shebab, a hardline Islamist armed group, and Hezb al-Islam, a more political group, launched an unprecedented nationwide offensive against the administration of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

The internationally-backed Sharif has been holed up in his presidential quarters, protected by African Union peacekeepers as his forces were unable to reassert their authority on the capital.

Around 300 people are confirmed to have been killed in the latest violence, many of them civilians.

The United States has also approached Eritrea with "concerns" that it is aiding the insurgents and warned that such support would be a "serious obstacle" to better ties, a US State Department spokesman said on Thursday.

But Eritrea again dismissed the allegations.

"These pronouncements do not contain novel or substantive elements," it said.

Ties between the two countries have in recent years been frosty, with Eritrea accusing the United States of backing its arch-foe Ethiopia in a long-running border dispute.