A powerful Islamist movement has seized control of a strategic trading post in southern Somalia, expanding its territorial control and fuelling fears of an all-out war with government troops, residents and militia commanders said on Thursday.
A day after government troops, allegedly assisted by Ethiopia soldiers, dug trenches around the base of the south-central town of Baidoa, the Islamists said the township, which straddles three regions, had fallen without bloodshed, according witnesses.
Heavily armed Islamic fighters rode into Saakow township, about 340km south-west of the capital Mogadishu, late on Wednesday without much resistance after Juba Valley Alliance (JVA) militia loyal to Barre Shirre Hirale, the defence minister of the transitional government, fled, they said.
”We have taken control of Saakow, praise be to Allah and it was simple because we did not encounter any fighting when we entered the town,” Sheikh Hassan Derow, an Islamic commander in the Lower Juba region, told Agence France-Presse by phone.
Residents confirmed the fall of the outpost, which straddles Bay, Gedo and the Lower Juba regions.
They said the pro-government militia fled to the northern town of Bardheera, further north near Baidoa, about 250km north-west of the capital, amid fears they were regrouping for a fresh assault.
”Militiamen loyal to Hirale fled the town before the arrival of the Islamic militia,” said Mohamed Mumin Ismail, a resident contacted by radio.
”I left Saakow in the evening after Islamic militias had taken control of the town,” added Hussein Ahmed Duqo, a resident of the township.
But the JVA denied claims of fleeing, saying its fighters pulled out for strategic reasons.
”The withdrawal is a tactical move aimed at regrouping our fighters. We left the town for strategic reasons,” said Ahmed Abdullahi, a JVA militia commander said, refusing the explain the strategy.
The seizure of Saakow came as Islamist forces continued massing near the town of Burhakaba, about 50km east of Baidoa, which was briefly occupied at the weekend by the government but re-taken on Monday by the Islamists.
The government, allegedly backed by Ethiopian forces, dug trenches and erected defences around Baidoa girding for clashes with the Islamists, who have indicated the desire to seize the provincial outpost.
In Burhakaba, witnesses said the Islamists began to block fuel shipments from the port of Mogadishu to Baidoa in a move that could cripple the town, which is the temporary base of the transitional government, enfeebled by infighting.
Despite numerous eye-witness accounts, Ethiopia has repeatedly denied deploying troops in Somalia to protect and support the government, but conceded that it had a sent military instructors in the Horn of Africa nation to train its nascent army.
But the mainly Christian Ethiopia has vowed to protect itself and the Somali government from the ”jihadists,” whom, together with the transitional government, it accuses of links with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.
The Islamists deny this, insisting their sole aim is to restore stability in Somalia.
On Tuesday, the Islamists claimed to have captured an Ethiopian officer in clashes that killed at least 51 people north of the southern port of Kismayo, but Addis Ababa has not responded to the allegations.
Soaring tensions between the Islamists and the government and worsening security in south and central Somalia have forced tens of thousands to flee into neighboring Kenya and added to concerns of widespread conflict.
The deteriorating situation threatens to scupper a planned third round of Arab League-mediated peace talks between the government and the Islamists set to begin on October 30 in Khartoum.
Somalia has been without a functioning central administration since 1991 and the government, formed in neighbouring Kenya in 2004, has been wracked by infighting and unable to assert control over much of the country. — AFP
