Somalia’s virtually powerless government said a cargo plane that landed at the capital’s airport on Wednesday morning was carrying weapons for Islamic militants who have seized control of much of southern Somalia.
The Ilyushin-76 was only the second aircraft able to land at Mogadishu International airport in more than a decade of anarchy, demonstrating the Islamic militia’s total control of the capital.
A spokesperson for the country’s official government, based 250km outside Mogadishu, said the plane was carrying weapons from Eritrea for a militia loyal to the Supreme Islamic Courts’ Council.
”I call for the Islamic courts and the Eritrean government to stop igniting a war in Somalia,” Salad Ali Jeeley told the Associated Press (AP).
An AP reporter watched the plane land on Wednesday morning, but Islamic officials quickly ordered journalists to stop taking photographs and to leave the area immediately. An Ilyushin-76 can carry 52 000kg of cargo.
The relationship between the powerful Islamic militants and Somalia’s weak government, which has international support but no military, has deteriorated in recent weeks despite United Nations efforts to arrange peace talks.
The Islamic militia’s rise has prompted particular concern in the United States, which accuses the group of harbouring al-Qaeda leaders responsible for deadly 1998 bombings at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
On Tuesday, a UN envoy was in Somalia trying to arrange peace talks in Sudan aimed at avoiding more fighting in Somalia and a potentially bigger conflagration.
The Islamic militia’s leader, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, rebuffed the plan, saying he won’t negotiate until the government expels all foreign troops. Neighbouring Ethiopia has sent troops to protect the government, according to widespread witness accounts.
”Until Ethiopian troops leave Somali soil, we will never negotiate with the government,” Aweys said.
Somali government leaders have denied that Ethiopian soldiers are in Somalia, perhaps because they don’t want to appear beholden to the country’s traditional rival. Ethiopia, a largely Christian country, is the long-time enemy of Somalia, which is mostly Muslim.
But Somalia’s president has ties to Ethiopia and has asked for its help in the past.
While Aweys ruled out any talks, a more moderate Islamic leader left open the possibility after meeting with Francois Lonseny Fall, the UN special representative to Somalia.
Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed said the group’s ”peace committee” still had to consider the UN’s call for negotiations, which would be held next week in Khartoum.
In an apparent acknowledgment that Ethiopian troops were complicating peace efforts, Fall told reporters: ”The UN is always calling on maximum restraint from neighbouring countries and for them not to interfere at this particular moment in Somalia.”
He also praised the Islamic union. After seeing the streets of Mogadishu without roadblocks or gunmen, he said it had ”achieved great things in Mogadishu. I have seen it”. Fall also met with the government in Baidoa — the only town controlled by the government — where a top official said it was ready for the talks.
”We will go to Khartoum without any preconditions,” Abdirizak Adam, President Abdullahi Yusuf’s chief of staff said after the meeting in the presidential compound, which was surrounded by hundreds of soldiers in mismatched uniforms. A government spokesperson said talks could still go on with moderate members of the Islamic militia, even if Aweys was rejecting them.
”Aweys is a terrorist, so it not surprising that he is refusing talks,” Salad Ali Jeeley said. ”We hope the moderate Islamists will attend the meeting.”
Somalia has been without an effective central government since warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, carving much of the country into armed camps ruled by violence and clan law.
The government was established nearly two years ago with the support of the UN to serve as a transitional body to help Somalia emerge from anarchy. But the leadership, which includes some warlords linked to the violence of the past, has failed to establish any power. — Sapa-AP