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Guardian Newspaper, Nigeria Tuesday, February 02, 2010 A SIX-NATION East African regional bloc has urged Somalia's two breakaway regions of Puntland and Somaliland to jointly battle Islamist militia which it said had extended to the areas. Heavy mortar fire between African Union peacekeepers and Islamist insurgents yesterday killed no fewer than 12 civilians and left scores wounded in the Somali capital. AU forces fired several mortars into areas of north Mogadishu in retaliation for artillery attacks by the rebels late on Sunday. "Our team collected eight bodies of civilians who were killed in the shelling and 55 others who were injured, some of them seriously," said Ali Musa, the head of the war-ravaged city's ambulance service. The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) "noted in particular that the terrorist groups have recently expanded their acts of terrorism to the relatively stable regions of Somaliland and Puntland." The group was referring to the Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab militia and its Hezb al-Islam allies who have waged fierce battles against Somalia's internationally backed government. It "called upon the authorities in Somaliland and Puntland to coordinate their response and also work closely with the (Somali government) to overcome the common threat that they are facing from the Shebab and Hezb al-Islam." Three policemen were killed on January 25 in a bomb explosion triggered by unknown attackers in Las Anod, a town which lies in the disputed border area between Somaliland and Puntland. Also last month, Somaliland authorities said that they had thwarted an attack on a mosque in Hargeysa, the state's capital, whose Imam had criticised suicide bombings carried out by the Shebab. The Shebab, engaged in an offensive to topple the internationally recognised government in Mogadishu, are mainly active in southern and central Somalia but several of its key figures are originally from Somaliland. About 10 people were killed last Friday when the Al Qaeda-inspired rebels, known at the Shebab, fired a barrage of mortar shells at a ceremony to mark the first year of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's shaky rule. The Shebab and Hezb al-Islam, another extremist militia, launched a fiery offensive against the government last May, vowing to overthrow it as well as drive out the AU force, a regular target for their attacks. Sharif's government controls just a few streets in Mogadishu with the help of the AU peacekeeping mission, an under-strength force yet to attain the intended capacity of 8,000 troops. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon ruled out any deployment of UN peacekeepers in Somalia until the end of the country's years of civil war. "Practically and realistically, it is not possible at this time to deploy a UN peacekeeping force in Somalia," he told reporters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Saturday. "We need a peace to keep and now there is no peace." The AU has called several times on the UN to take over from its own beleaguered peacekeepers, which have been powerless to contain the advance of the Islamist rebels against a weak transitional government. Ban said he intended to make Sweden's Margot Wallstrom his special representative tasked with combating sexual violence against women and children in conflicts. The UN scribe announced he wanted to appoint the 55-year-old outgoing vice-president of the European Commission during a speech at the opening of the African Union's 14th summit in Addis Ababa. "I have informed the UNSC of my intention to appoint Margot Wallstrom, vice-president of the European Commission, as my special representative to intensify efforts to end sexual violence against women and children in conflict situations," he said. "We will continue efforts to end the conflicts in the east (of the Democratic Republic of Congo), restore state authority, facilitate the return of refugees, and protect civilians against all forms of violence including sexual violence," Ban said. "I'm horrified and outraged by the use of rape as a weapon of war," he said. The Swedish diplomat said she would lobby for sexual violence in war to be recognised as a war crime, attacking what she said was a tendency to explain the abuse of women as "cultural." "I say this is not cultural, it is criminal. It is a crime under international law and it is also a war crime," she told Swedish public radio. The long-running conflicts in Somalia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) - where abuses against women and children are rife - topped the agenda of the AU summit, which wound up yesterday. The United Nation sounded the alarm in November over systematic rape by warring parties in the DRC, where some 5,000 conflict-linked rapes were reported in Sud-Kivu alone for the first half of 2009.