MOGADISHU, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- An Islamist insurgent group in Somalia has threatened target planes using the international airport in Mogadishu which they say is being used as a base by African Union peacekeepers in Somalia, a statement posted on the group's website said Sunday.
"After long assessment and surveillance on the real work at the Mogadishu airport, it became inevitable that we stop the use of that airport," said the statement which listed a number of "reasons" for the group's decision.
"The airport is a military base for the occupying Ugandan forces and the militias of the apostasy government," it said.
The statement gives next Tuesday as the deadline for the "closure" of the only international airport in Mogadishu.
The airport as well as the seaport is secured by the Ugandan contingent of the African Union peacekeeping mission known as AMISOM since their deployment early last year.
Nearly 1,600 Ugandan forces and 800 Burundian troops are currently deployed in the Somali capital as part of a UN authorized 8,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force.
The airport is also being used by a number of locally chartered planes that do daily flights to and from neighboring countries and to United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Neither the Somali transitional government nor the foreign forces in Somali have commented on the threat to target planes using the airport which has been one of the few infrastructures operating in Somalia.
The group also alleges that the airport is being used by U.S. intelligence officers to enter into the country and "by Ethiopian troops to send their injured soldiers home".
An airplane chartered by Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia was shot down over Mogadishu early last year, killing 11 crew members from Belorussia.
Al-Shabaab, which is listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, has been behind some of the most deadliest attacks on Somali government forces and foreign forces in Somalia. Leaders of the group are wanted by the U.S. for links with terrorism.
