Somalia Says Downing That Killed 11 May Have Been Accident

According to Belarus officials, Islamist fighters were responsible for the missile attack of a large Ilyushin plane in Somalia assisting African Union peacekeepers that killed 11 people onboard Friday.

The Somali government, however, said the incident looked more like an accident than an attack by insurgents, reported Reuters.

"The plane was shot down," Transport Ministry spokeswoman Kseniya Perestoronina said in Minsk, and was hit at an altitude of 500 feet. As Aero-News reported, the plane had just taken off from Somalia's main airport in the capital of Mogadishu.

A Somali radio station and an Islamist website agreed with Belarus, claiming a missile hit the Russian-made Ilyushin just after takeoff from Mogadishu.

The aircraft crashed in flames after one of its wings fell into the Indian Ocean, eyewitnesses said. Captain Paddy Ankunda, spokesman for the Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia, confirmed a crash.

If confirmed, it would be the most spectacular strike yet by rebels fighting the Somali government, their Ethiopian military allies, and the African Union (AU) force since the start of 2007.

However, Somali Interior Minister Mohamed Mahamud Guled said it was more likely that an accident downed the plane. Guled asserted the incident had the hallmarks of a technical fault.

"We are waiting for technical experts," he added, without specifically ruling out an attack on the plane prior to ascent.

"The plane took off at around 5:00, and as soon as it reached 10,000 feet altitude, the pilot reported an engine problem in engine number two and said he would turn back to the airport," Guled said, contrary to what Belarus officials reported.

An airport worker, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, claimed to have seen the attack on the Russian-built plane. Another witness said he saw one of the plane's wings fall into the Indian Ocean.

"Nobody knows what exactly has caused the crash. There are conflicting stories coming from eyewitnesses and we are investigating," Mohamud told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Mogadishu International Airport Manager Mohmed Ahmed Siyaad said that before the plane crashed the captain contacted the control tower and said one of the engines had caught fire.

Only one of the 11 seven crew members and four engineers initially survived the crash and was found wandering among corpses and wreckage. He later died in a hospital.

At the crash site, a farmers' hamlet just north of Mogadishu, wreckage was strewn across an area the size of four football fields.

"I was so scared," said Mahmud Farah, a local born in the area. "The smoke and the fire coming from the sky was overwhelming. Everyone though it was going to explode again after it crashed and so they fled the area. I am 50 years old and this is the first time I've ever been near a plane."

The downed plane had brought a team to fix another Ilyushin lying damaged at Mogadishu airport after flying in peacekeepers. That plane caught fire on the runway in an incident the AU said was a technical fault, but Islamists said was a missile attack, according to Reuters.

Fighters believed to be Islamists and disgruntled clan militia have been striking daily against government forces, Ethiopian troops, and a contingent of 1,200 Ugandan soldiers in the vanguard of the African Union force.

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