Somali rebels push for 'endless war'
NAIROBI, Thursday
Somalia's Shabaab rebels said Thursday they were building defences that would plunge Kenyan forces battling them into an "endless war."
Kenyan soldiers and tanks pushed into Shabaab-controlled southern Somalia last month to fight the insurgents and curtail their ability to launch cross-border attacks.
"The Shabaab mujahideen will defend Somalia, and will put Kenya into an endless war," the Al-Qaeda-linked rebels said in statement.
"We will defeat you like the other major countries that have suffered when they attacked Somalia, you will see the consequences."
Since Somalia spiralled into civil war in 1991, several foreign armies -- including US forces, UN peacekeepers and a 2006 Ethiopian invasion -- have failed to create stability in the anarchic nation.
Kenya's army claims that Shabaab fighters have received three air deliveries of arms and ammunition this week, and have warned residents in 10 southern Somali towns to leave Shabaab-held areas ahead of an imminent attack.
"We will soon deliver on disrupting that flow of arms, and we will ensure they are not effective," said Kenyan army spokesman, Major Emmanuel Chirchir, in a message posted on Twitter Thursday.
The militants however dismissed the reported air deliveries as an excuse by Kenya to legitimise civilian deaths ahead of the expected assault. (READ: Shabaab gets third planeload of arms)
"This is cheap propaganda to legalise the indiscriminate killing of Somalis," the Shabaab statement added, posted in Somali on an Islamist website.
Kenya has said it will probe reports of civilian deaths when its warplanes struck the rebel-held town of Jilib at the weekend, where aid agency Doctors Without Borders said five civilians were killed.
Rebels however said they feared that there could be more civilian deaths when Kenya ramps up its military attacks on its positions.
"This is a plan to carry out collective punishment against the Muslim people of Somalia... the killing of civilians at Jilib by Kenya is clear testimony of this," the Shabaab statement added.
