Somalia aid workers targeted for killings

MOGADISHU, Somalia, July 20 (UPI) -- Foreign aid workers trying to stave off a famine in Somalia say assassinations and kidnappings are forcing them to flee the country.

At least 20 aid workers have been killed since January and 17 have been abducted, The New York Times reported Sunday. Leaflets warning aid workers they're being targeted for further assassinations are prompting many to flee dangerous urban areas such as Mogadishu and the situation is endangering United Nations food relief efforts.

The aid worker killings appear to be well organized and some blame violently anti-Western Islamic militant groups opposed to the country's embattled central government. But the leader of one such group denied the claims, telling The Times his group is guarding foreign aid workers, not killing them.

Another theory is that government agents are slaying and kidnapping the workers in order to make the situation so bad, U.N. peacekeeping forces will be drawn into Somalia's civil war. But the government denies this, the Times said.

"It's obvious who's doing this," Abdi Awaleh Jama, a Somali ambassador at large, told the newspaper. "It's hard-liner Islamists who hate the West. They are forces of darkness, not forces of light."