Somalia’s dominant Islamic militia on Sunday seized control of a central township near the coastline that has been a base of piracy and dozens of hijackings of ships in the Indian Ocean, officials and residents said.
”The Islamic courts are in full control of Haradere and we were welcomed by its inhabitants, who were forcefully ruled by pirates,” Sheikh Said Ali, an Islamic courts official, said of the township that lies about 300km north of Mogadishu.
”The era of banditry and piracy is over. People can now live peacefully and get money by fishing and doing other businesses, but not piracy. The pirates have mistreated people in the territorial waters of Somalia and damaged our credibility,” he added.
The Islamists, who in June ousted warlords from several parts of southern Somalia, vowed to crack down on locals aiding piracy.
”The actions of the pirates were unlawful, unacceptable and un-Islamic. Anybody suspected of aiding pirates or being among them will be punished according to sharia law,” Ali said. ”The pirates are enemies of Somalia as well as the Islamic courts.”
Residents said the pirates, calling themselves the Defenders of Somali Territorial Waters and loyal to regional warlord Abdi Mohamed Afweyne, fled before the Islamic militiamen and battle wagons — pickup trucks mounted with machine guns — arrived at the dusty outpost in the country’s Mudug region.
”The Islamic courts [have] deployed some 200 fighetrs and eight battle wagons, and other fighters are going to be joining them,” said Haradere resident Yahin Haji Ahmed.
Last month, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the head of the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia, which controls the capital and much of southern Somalia, said he would forcefully stop all acts of piracy in Somalia.
Despite accusations that they are linked to terrorism groups, the Islamists have managed to restore law and order in their areas of control, notably by imposing sharia law. Last week, they announced control of the strategic town of Beledweyne, near the Ethiopian border, in their push to expand territory.
Their growing influence has threatened the feeble 18-month-old transitional government based in the south-central town of Baidoa.
Since mid-March 2005, the International Maritime Bureau has reported at least 41 hijackings and attempted seizures of vessels along the Somali coastline, joining Indonesia and Bangladesh as the world’s most dangerous hot spots for high-seas ambushes.
In the recent months, shipping firms and international organisations have been forced to pay large ransoms for the release of vessels and crew.
The most recent was last month with the release the 351-tonne Dongwon-ho No 628, owned by South Korea’s Dongwon Fisheries, that was hijacked in April while operating with two other South Korean tuna ships, and its owners forced to pay a ransom of $800 000.
Last year, the World Food Programme was forced to halve the delivery by sea of relief supplies to nearly a million people who were facing food shortages after the piracy repeatedly targeted its vessels that were sailing from the Kenyan port city of Mombasa.
Somalia has had no functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and pirates have increasingly taken advantage of the lack of authority to prey along its 3 700km-long coast. — Sapa-AFP