20110301
reuters

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali rebels have launched a recruiting drive to counter a government offensive aimed at breaking the back of the insurgents, a rebel commander said on Tuesday, as fighting continued a stone's throw from Kenya.

Sustained clashes over the last week have centred on the capital and Somalia's southern border with Kenya. Government troops and African Union peacekeepers say they have inflicted heavy losses on the al Shabaab militants in Mogadishu.

But al Shabaab claim to have hit back, killing at least seven Burundian soldiers from the AMISOM peacekeeping force.

"We urge Somalis, in particular military officers from former governments, to take up weapons and support al Shabaab's counter-attack," Sheikh Muktar Robow Mansoor, a top al Shabaab militant, told a crowd in the rebel-held Gedo region.

In the south, Ethiopian troops lined the border from the Kenyan town of Mandera east to the Ethiopian frontier town of Dollow, residents and a Somali military officer said.

Ethiopia invaded Somalia to support the interim government with tacit U.S. support at the end of 2006 and officially withdrew its military from the country only in early 2009.

Since then Ethiopia and neighbouring Kenya, east Africa's largest economy, have helped to train Somali government forces.

Over the weekend, al Shabaab repeated threats to strike Kenya for its training activities and for allowing Ethiopian troops to operate from its towns.