After a week-long lull in fighting in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, war-weary residents cautiously ventured out on Sunday onto the city streets, amid further sabre-rattling by the Islamic courts and warlords’ alliance.
Even with the near-complete control of Mogadishu by the Islamic courts, which routed fighters of a United States-backed warlord alliance on Monday, residents said a fresh battle was imminent as the two sides would not tolerate each other for long and were bolstering their defences.
”Justice and injustice cannot stay in the same place,” said Mohamed Amin Yasin, a supporter of the capital’s Joint Islamic Courts. ”That is what has prolonged the civil strife since 1991.”
Still, Mogadishu residents went about their business as some called on the Islamic courts to rout the warlords from their hideout in the northern Karan district.
On Saturday, the chairperson of the capital’s Islamic tribunal, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, called on the alliance members to surrender peacefully. The warlords immediately dismissed the call, saying Ahmed represented only a minority.
But hard-line elders renewed the order on Sunday, vowing to evict the warlords from their hideout.
”If the warlords refuse to surrender, that would lead to a renewed fighting. Even the most foolish person understands that,” said Hassan Jumale, an elder allied to the Islamic courts.
”The courts have a plan for Somalia and will not stop until they fulfil that dream. God knows if we will be successful but that is a plan which led us to fight the warlords backed by the world’s only superpower,” Jumale told Agence France-Presse from southern Mogadishu.
At least three of the warlords and members of the US-funded Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism (ARPCT) are holed up in the Karan district, where they are protected by the powerful Abgal sub clan.
Despite losing substantial control of Mogadishu, the warlords have rejected the authority of the Islamic courts and threatened to resist any attempt to dislodge them. Observers of the situation have said the alliance is planning new attacks.
The city stirred with palpable fear, but residents said they had to continue carrying on with their daily activities.
”If you stay at your home nobody will feed your children,” said Ahmed Abdurahman, a shop owner in the capital. ”You have to do business as usual despite the threats of stray bullets.”
Last week, the Islamists seized control of most of Mogadishu, sparking fears of a Taliban-like takeover, with the forcible imposition of Sharia law and radical Muslim policies that could breed terrorists and other forms of Islamic extremism.
They wrenched control of the capital from the ARPTC, which was founded in February with US support to curb the growing influence of the courts.
Washington, which has never confirmed or denied its support for the warlords, said it would ”reserve judgement” on the Islamists’ victory after four months of fighting that claimed about 350 lives and wounded more than 2 000 others.
On Friday, it announced the formation of a ”Somalia Contact Group” that, together with other interested countries, will ”promote concerted action and coordination to support” the largely powerless transitional Somali government.
Meanwhile, elders pressed rival sides to refrain from new attacks outside the provincial town of Jowhar, 90km north of Mogadishu and the remaining stronghold of the warlords, where fighters are facing off.
Tensions continued in the seat of Somalia’s impotent and fractured government in Baidoa, about 250km north-west of the capital, a day after President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed imposed an overnight curfew following a move on Friday by gunmen to launch an attack on the presidential compound. — AFP
