/ 1 January 2007

Islamic forcees abandon stronghold in Somalia

Islamic fighters abandoned the last major town they held early on Monday and were seen heading south toward the Kenyan border while government forces approached slowly because of landmines, residents and the government spokesperson said.

Hundreds of gunmen, who apparently deserted from the Islamic movement, began looting the warehouses where the Council of Islamic Courts had stored supplies, including weapons and ammunition. Gangs skirmished in the streets of the port city of Kismayo and the city was descending into chaos, businessman Sheik Musa Salad said.

”Everything is out of control, everyone has a gun and gangs are looting everything now that the Islamists have left,” he added.

An Associated Press reporter saw hundreds of Islamic fighters, many of them Arabs and South Asians, fleeing in heavily armed trucks toward the Kenyan border, 160km to the south. The Islamic forces have a base near the border on a small peninsula called Ras Kamboni, where there is a pier for traditional oceangoing boats known as dhows.

Ethiopian MiG fighter jets flew low over the ocean looking for boats that might be carrying the escaping Islamic fighters.

The Islamic forces began to disintegrate after a night of artillery attacks and following a mutiny within their ranks, witnesses said. Government spokesperson Abdirahman Dinari said Kismayo would soon be under government control.

”The Islamists have fled Kismayo and our troops are on the way,” Dinari said.

But government forces were approaching Kismayo slowly because of landmines, residents north of Kismayo said. They were still several hours away at midmorning on Monday.

On Sunday in Kismayo, an estimated 3 000 Islamic fighters were preparing for a bloody showdown, but Islamic fighter Rabi Ahmed said that about 50 militiamen in the city were refusing to go to the front and fight.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said three al-Qaeda suspects wanted in the 1998 bombings of United States embassies in East Africa that killed more than 250 people were hiding in Kismayo. The three are Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Abu Taha al-Sudani.

Islamic leaders had vowed to make a stand against Ethiopia, which has one of the largest armies in Africa, or to begin an Iraq-style guerrilla war.

”My fighters will defeat the Ethiopian’s forces,” Sheik Ahmed Mohamed Islan, the head of the Islamic movement in the Kismayo region, said by telephone.

”Even if we are defeated we will start an insurgency. We will kill every Somali that supports the government and Ethiopians,” he said.

Somalia’s interim government and its Ethiopian allies have long accused Islamic militias of harboring al-Qaeda, and the US government has said the 1998 bombers have become leaders in the Islamic movement in Africa.

”We would like to capture or kill these guys at any cost,” said Gedi. ”They are the root of the problem.”

In the past 10 days, the Islamic group has been forced from the capital, Mogadishu, and other key towns in the face of attacks led by Ethiopia.

Gedi said he spoke Sunday to the US ambassador in Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, about sealing the Kenyan border with Somalia to prevent the three terror suspects from escaping.

”If we capture them alive we will hand them over to the United States,” Gedi said. ”We know they are in Kismayo.”

The US government has a counterterrorism task force based in neighbouring Djibouti and has been training Kenyan and Ethiopian forces to protect their borders. The US navy’s Fifth Fleet also has a maritime task force patrolling international waters off the Somali coast, which helps prevent terrorists from launching attacks or transporting personnel, weapons or other material, said fleet

spokesperson Commander Kevin Aandahl.

Islamic movement leaders deny having any links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terror network.

But in a recorded message posted on the internet on Saturday, deputy al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri called on Somalia’s Muslims and other Muslims worldwide to continue the fight against ”infidels and crusaders”.

Gedi accused al-Zawahri of trying to destabilize Somalia and its neighbours.

The military advance marked a stunning turnaround for Somalia’s government, which just weeks ago could barely control one town — its base of Baidoa — while the Council of Islamic Courts controlled the capital and much of southern Somalia.

The Council of Islamic Courts, the umbrella group for the Islamic movement that ruled Mogadishu for six months, wants to transform Somalia into a strict Islamic state.

Islamic officials said they still had fighters in the capital and were ready for warfare. Late Saturday, an unexplained blast in the capital left one woman dead and two others wounded and stirred fears of a guerrilla war. – Sapa-AP