Islamist forces withdraw from Mogadishu

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Islamist forces withdraw from Mogadishu

By Mike Pflanz and agencies

Last Updated: 7:59am GMT 28/12/2006



Islamist forces in Somalia have surrendered control of the capital Mogadishu to pro-government forces backed by Ethiopia, it has been reported this morning.






Somali government soldiers outside Mogadishu


As fierce fighting in the African nation entered its sixth day, a senior Islamist leader said Islamist troops had withdrawn from the capital.

Sheikh Sharif Ahmed said that the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) forces remained united, and the retreat was a change of tactics in its war against the internationally recognised government and its Ethiopian allies.

Following the announcement this morning, a government spokesman issued a triumphant statement, saying state troops would be in control of the capital within the next few hours. "The Islamic courts leaders have dispersed in thin air," Abdirahman Dinari told reporters, adding that the Islamist leaders had fled to the southern port of Kismayu.

"Our forces already effectively control Mogadishu because we have taken over the two control points on the main roads outside the city," he said. "Within 2 to 3 hours we will capture the whole city."

The retreat came hours after a joint force of Ethiopian and Somali government troops advanced to just 18 miles from Mogadishu, threatening to besiege the capital rather than attack it.

Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's prime minister, said yesterday that his aim was to crush radicals who he believed were leading the ICU, which took control of much of Somalia in June and imposed strict Islamic law.

Washington and Addis Ababa have claimed that the Courts' leadership is riddled with al-Qa'eda elements planning further terror raids and an expansion of fundamentalist Islam across the Horn of Africa.

"We are not going to fight for Mogadishu, to avoid civilian casualties. Our troops will surround Mogadishu until they [the Islamists] surrender," Abdikarin Farah, Somalia's ambassador to Ethiopia, said in Addis Ababa.

The advancing forces were no doubt mindful that Mogadishu is a hard target to take. It was where the United States was forced into a hasty retreat in 1993 after losing two Black Hawk helicopters and 18 Army Rangers during a doomed mission to wrest control of the city from its once powerful warlords.

Today, the decision to besiege the city already appears to have been successful. The fighting has already seen the Islamists lose almost all the ground that they have taken since June, when they routed a coalition of warlords, who this time were funded by the US.

The last big town before the capital, Jowhar, was taken early yesterday after an artillery and rocket assault which forced ICU forces to flee. The strategic town was under the control last night of the Ethiopians and its unpopular former ruler, the warlord Mohamed Dheere, who rode in with the troops.

"He has been in the streets giving people T-shirts, some of them are cheering him," said Mohammed Abdi, a taxi driver.

Dheere took over Radio Jowhar and immediately began broadcasting Western pop music, which the Courts had banned.

The ICU has depicted the conflict with Christian-led Ethiopia as a holy war against "crusaders", tapping into popular anti-Ethiopian sentiment inside Somalia and anti-Western feelings among radical Muslims.

Francois Lonseny Fall, Kofi Annan's special representative to Somalia, told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday that peace talks had to be restarted urgently to avoid disaster for the country and possibly the region.



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