Guled Mohamed
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/ 4 February 2007

Getting married in Somalia’s war zone

The war in Somalia ruined my first attempt to marry Anisa on New Year’s Eve. I had planned to throw a splendid party in the central town of Baidoa, my young bride’s hometown, then entertain friends in the capital Mogadishu, where I live. But at the eleventh hour, I was forced to cancel the nuptials.

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/ 12 January 2007

Somali warlords agree to joint army

Somali warlords agreed on Friday to merge their forces into a new national army to tame the anarchic nation, but fighting outside the presidential palace where they met showed how hard that task will be. Warlord gunmen trying to force their way inside fought Somali troops and the shoot-out killed a handful of people.

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/ 29 December 2006

Govt troops march into Mogadishu

Triumphant Somali government forces and their Ethiopian allies marched into Mogadishu on Thursday after Islamist rivals abandoned the war-scarred capital they had held for six months. The flight of the Islamists was a dramatic turn-around in the Horn of Africa nation after they had spread across the south imposing sharia rule and confined the interim government to its base in Baidoa.

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/ 28 December 2006

Somali government to seize Mogadishu

Ethiopian and Somali government troops held the main routes into Mogadishu and were poised to capture Somalia’s capital after Islamist rivals deserted their former base on Thursday. Residents said the coastal city slid into chaos with outbreaks of looting and gunfire as a leader of the Somalia Islamic Courts Council said their top officials had left.

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/ 28 December 2006

Somali pro-government forces ‘will besiege capital’

Ethiopian and Somali government troops advanced to 30km from Islamist-held Mogadishu on Wednesday, but a representative said they would besiege the Somali capital rather than attack it. ”We are not going to fight for Mogadishu, to avoid civilian casualties. Our troops will surround Mogadishu until they [the Islamists] surrender,” Somali Ambassador Abdikarin Farah told reporters in Addis Ababa.

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/ 27 December 2006

Somali pro-govt forces capture key Islamist town

Somalia’s pro-government troops seized a key southern town from their Islamist rivals on Wednesday in the closest battle yet to the religious movement’s Mogadishu stronghold, witnesses said. ”The government has taken over Jowhar. I can see government troops on top of armoured vehicles chasing Islamists troops,” resident Mahamud Ismail said.

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/ 25 December 2006

Ethiopian fighter jets hit Somali airports

Ethiopian warplanes attacked two Islamist-held airfields in Somalia on Monday, witnesses said, wounding at least one person and further escalating a conflict that threatens to engulf the Horn of Africa in war. The attacks came the morning after Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi formally declared war on the Islamists.