MOGADISHU, Somalia, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- Somali insurgents with al-Shabaab are negotiating a partnership with the radical Islamic movement Hezb ul-Islam, a senior militant suggested.
Al-Shabaab last week launched a major offensive against the beleaguered Somali government, killing four lawmakers in a raid on a downtown hotel.
Ali Mohamed Hussein, an al-Shabaab leader in the Somali capital, warned the public that war was on the horizon, Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper reports.
"We are asking for public support, reckoning the possibility that war planes join the conflict in Mogadishu," he was quoted as saying. "We want the people (near the capital) to help us."
He said peacekeepers stationed in the area were expecting reinforcements soon. The organization, meanwhile, is in negotiations to form a partnership with radicals in the Islamic movement Hezb ul-Islam, the report adds.
Sources close to the rebel talks told the Kenyan newspaper that al-Shabaab was pressing for unification with Hezb ul-Islam under the name Harakatu al-Shabaab al-Mujaheddin, or the movement of the youth jihadists.
The African Union has around 6,000 troops in Mogadishu and the United States, the Arab League, France and the European Union pledged support for the Somali government.
A mortar attack Monday blamed on al-Shabaab killed four Ugandan soldiers with the African Union peacekeeping force in Mogadishu.
The group said it declared war on the AU peacekeepers.
