Warships block vessel from rebel-held Somali port

By Ibrahim Mohamed

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Foreign warships blocked a cargo vessel from entering Somalia's rebel-held Kismayu port on Friday in a new strategy to try and choke the militant insurgent group al Shabaab, the government said.

Ports and Sea Transport Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Habasade said the action was taken in line with resolutions by East African body IGAD and the African Union (AU) to try and stop supplies reaching the al Qaeda-linked movement.

"I'm confirming to you that the international warships prevented a commercial ship from docking in Kismayu," he told Reuters. "We are warning Somali traders against chartering ships to the opposition groups' strongholds, because they have sanctions imposed on them."

There was no immediate confirmation from foreign navies. They have deployed in the area since the turn of the year to try and prevent piracy that has flourished in the busy Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean shipping lanes due to lawlessness onshore.

The ship had delivered goods to the capital Mogadishu before heading south to Kismayu, the minister said. Its nationality and details of its cargo were not known.

Al Shabaab did not immediately comment on the ship issue, but said earlier on Friday that it had imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Kismayu after a rare attack near one of its bases in the southern city it has held since mid-2008.

Two civilians were injured when a hand-grenade was hurled towards the base on Thursday night, locals said, in the latest violence in the Horn of Africa nation which has suffered 18 years of near-continuous civil conflict.

"We are interrogating the two injured civilians. We do not really know who hurled the hand grenade," senior al Shabaab official Sheikh Ahmed Hassan told Reuters.