Fighters loyal to a United States-backed warlord alliance reinforced their last remaining stronghold on Friday as Islamist militia in control of the capital gathered for a feared attack, witnesses said.
Heavily armed gunmen backed by machine-gun mounted pick-ups set up barricades and took up positions around the town of Jowhar as hundreds of residents fled on hearing the Islamists planned to assault the town, they said.
Elders said alliance militia commander Hassan Bhisow ordered the new deployments after reports that Islamic militia were gathering to the south and west of Jowhar, about 90km north of Mogadishu.
The Islamists had withdrawn from a position close to Jowhar on Thursday after elders persuaded them not to attack, but were re-grouping in the towns of Balad and Walewein, according to residents there.
”We got word the Islamist militia were gathering in Balad and Walewein and are ready to attack us, so Bhisow sent enough fighters to villages around Jowhar to erect defences,” one elder told Agence France-Presse.
Alliance fighters were stationed at the nearby Garsale trading post and along the key road leading to Walewein, about 70km south-west of Jowhar, witnesses said.
Balad resident Ali Hussein said the Islamic militia were awaiting orders to move on Jowhar, despite pledges from their leaders in Mogadishu they are not interested in pursuing new territorial gains.
”The plan to attack Jowhar is there but nobody exactly knows when it will happen,” he said.
Many in Jowhar, the last stronghold of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism (ARPCT), said the Islamist withdrawal from positions to the south was a feint and the attack would come from the west.
On Thursday, alliance commanders vowed a fight to the death to defend Jowhar, and 24 hours later tension was palpable with gunmen patrolling the streets and nervous residents packing up belongings to leave, witnesses said.
Alliance fighters said they were awaiting the return of Jowhar warlord Mohamed Dheere, believed to be in neighbouring Ethiopia securing arms and men, to attack the Islamists in Balad, about 60km south.
”If they haven’t attacked us by the time Dheere comes back, we will definitely go after them,” said one gunman.
Nearly 350 people have been killed and more than 1 500 wounded, many of them civilians, in four months of bloody fighting between the alliance and Islamist militia that earlier this week seized most of Mogadishu.
The capital was largely calm on Friday as most residents attended Friday prayers in the city’s mosques, but tensions ran high, particularly in northern areas controlled by the Abgal sub-clan that has rejected the Islamist victory.
Two alliance members, warlords Musa Sudi Yalahow and Bashir Raghe Shirar, are holed up with Abgal elders and have warned they will attack the Islamists if they attempt to take Jowhar or seize the rest of the city.
Gains by the Muslim militia have sparked fears of a Taliban-like takeover of Somalia, especially in the US, which accuses the Islamists of harbouring extremists, including al-Qaeda operatives.
The chairperson of Mogadishu’s Sharia law court coalition, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, has denied those charges and this week sought to allay Western concerns that they intended to turn Somalia into a radical Islamic state.
The US reacted coolly to the Ahmed’s pledge, but has said it is reserving judgement on the Islamists and might be willing to work with them if they are truly committed to fighting terrorism.
Washington’s concerns manifested themselves in February when it helped the warlords form the ARPCT, giving the alliance cash and intelligence support to hunt down extremists allegedly hiding in Somalia.
The covert programme has been highly criticised for fuelling rampant insecurity in already strife-torn Somalia, which has been wracked by chaos since it descended into anarchy after the 1991 ousting of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre. — AFP
