Somali Islamists on Monday declared victory over a United States-backed warlord alliance and prepared to take over Mogadishu after four months of bloody fighting for control of the lawless capital.
Having captured nearly all of Mogadishu and a key warlord supply line on its northern outskirts on the weekend, the Islamists were formalising their seizure in a surrender and handover meeting with remnants of the alliance.
In a statement read over local radio stations, the chairperson of the city’s Joint Islamic Courts, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, said 15 years of warlord control of Mogadishu was over and urged residents to accept the new leadership.
”The Joint Islamic Courts [JIC] are not interested in a continuation of hostilities and will fully implement peace and security after the change has been made by the victory of the people with the support of Allah,” he said.
”The JIC will take care of the safety of the people and freedom of individuals and will eradicate any sort of hostilities brought about by inter-clan fighting,” Ahmed said.
At least 347 people have been killed and more 1 500 wounded, many of them civilians, in fierce battles between the Islamists and the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism (ARPCT) since February.
The alliance was created that month with US support in a bid to curb the growing influence of Mogadishu’s 11 Islamic courts and hunt down extremists, including al-Qaeda members, that they are accused of harbouring.
The courts, which have repeatedly denied the charges, had declared a holy war against the ARCPT and denounced its funding by the US, which clerics assailed as an ”enemy of Islam”.
The US never publicly confirmed or denied Washington’s support for the alliance but US officials had told Agence France-Presse they had given the warlords money and intelligence help to rein in ”creeping Talibanisation” in Somalia.
The Horn of Africa nation was plunged into anarchy with the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and analysts have long warned it could become a hotbed for radical Islam along the lines of Afghanistan.
After railing against US support for the warlords at rallies in which President George Bush was compared to a Nazi, Ahmed’s victory declaration on Monday appeared to contain the hint of an olive branch to his foes.
”We are not against any group and will deal with the outside world in a manner that takes the interests of our country and people into account first,” he said.
The announcement came as representatives of the courts were meeting with elders to discuss the handover of checkpoints, weapons and vehicles previously held by gunmen loyal to the alliance, officials said.
”This is a new era for Mogadishu without warlords,” Ahmed told AFP before the meeting began, declining to comment further until details were fully worked out.
It was not immediately clear when the transfer would be complete, although residents of the Mogadishu’s southern Daynile neighbourhood, where the ARPCT was based, told AFP earlier on Monday that the handover had already begun.
Fighters loyal to warlord Mohamed Afrah Qanyare, a founding ARPCT member, turned over about 25 machine-gun mounted pick-ups known as ”battlewagons” or ”technicals” to the Islamists in Daynile, witnesses said.
”The courts have taken all the the weapons that belonged to the Qanyare,” said an Islamist official.
Qanyare himself had left the city on Sunday, apparently en route to Jowhar, about 90km north, when it became clear the Islamists were about to take control of the alliance’s main supply route, witnesses said.
Qanyare had served as national security minister in Somalia’s largely powerless transitional government but was sacked from the Cabinet, along with three other warlords, earlier on Monday by Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi.
Gedi fired Qanyare, Commerce Minister Musa Sudi Yalahow, Militia Rehabilitation Minister Issa Botan Alin and Religious Affairs Minister Omar Muhamoud Finnish because of their involvement in the recent fighting. — AFP
