Somalia’s hard-line al-Shabaab group on Wednesday took over the southern port of Merka, a key entry point for food aid, further tightening the Islamists’ grip on the war-torn Horn of Africa country.
Hundreds of heavily-armed al-Shabaab fighters rolled into Merka town, about 100km south of the war-riven capital, Mogadishu, after pro-government forces fled.
”It seems that they are gaining control now and we did not have much power to defend the town,” said Hussein Yusuf Maalim, a member of the pro-government militia that ruled the town.
”Our commander ordered all the forces to leave the town in order to avoid any gunfight,” he added.
”They were armed with heavy machine guns and RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades],” said Ibrahim Abdalla Ali, a Merka resident.
”Hundreds of them entered the town and took control of the police station and other key positions in the town.”
Islamists have made significant military gains in recent months, leaving the embattled Western-backed transitional federal government only in control of some parts of Mogadishu and Baidoa, where Parliament is seated.
In 2006, the Islamic Courts Union, of which the al-Shabaab were the armed wing, had taken over most of the country before being ousted by Ethiopia’s invasion.
The Islamists have since splintered, the political leadership fleeing into exile and al-Shabaab engaging in a bruising guerrilla war that has left thousands of civilians dead.
On Tuesday, al-Shabaab fighters were already closing in on Merka and seized Qoryoley town, just more than 100km south-west of Mogadishu.
Merka is a key entry point for the food aid urgently needed by more than a third of Somalia’s population.
World Food Programme shipments, already hampered by rampant piracy in Somali waters, generally enter the country either by Merka or by Mogadishu.
African Union peacekeepers are stationed in the capital, but violence occurs almost daily.
Humanitarian workers have frequently been targeted by armed groups in recent months, with several killed and others kidnapped.
The attacks have made the already difficult task of responding to what the United Nations has described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters almost impossible.
In August, an alliance of al-Shabaab fighters and forces loyal to Islamist leader Hassan Turki, listed as a terrorist by the United States, seized control of Kismayo, one of the country’s largest cities and its main southern port.
They have since imposed a strict form of Sharia law akin to that which prevailed when the Islamic Courts Union ruled much of the country.
The Horn of Africa country has been ravaged by vicious cycles of violence since the 1991 ouster of former president Mohamed Siad Barre.
The seizure of Merka is a major setback to the UN-mediated talks in Djibouti between the government and its political opposition aimed at ending the nearly two-decade conflict in Somalia.
Al-Shabaab who have refused to recognise the Djibouti peace process and ceasefires, have vowed to keep fighting until Ethiopian troops withdraw from the country, where many regard them as occupiers.
Bloody power struggles have defied numerous UN-backed initiatives to restore stability and a functional government in Somalia, a nation of up to 10-million people. — AFP
