Somalia’s powerful Islamists on Monday declared holy war against Horn of Africa rival Ethiopia, which they accused of invading Somalia to help the government briefly seize a town controlled by pro-Islamist fighters. Both sides confirmed the takeover of Buur Hakaba, the first military counter-strike by President Abdullahi Yusuf’s interim government since the Islamists took Mogadishu in June.
Hundreds of Somalis rallied in support of Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi on Monday after he survived a confidence vote, narrowly averting the collapse of his fragile interim government. Shouting his name and carrying placards reading: ”Long live Gedi’s government”, crowds of supporters marched in the provincial town of Baidoa.
Ethiopian troops were moving closer to the Somali capital Mogadishu on Friday amid fears of all-out war in the volatile Horn of Africa nation where Islamists have risen to power. Ethiopian soldiers were moving beyond the provincial seat of the interim Somali government in Baidoa to the towns of Buur Hakaba and Baledogle.
Islamists who control Mogadishu and a large swathe of southern Somalia have opened a sharia court to serve two government-controlled regions, officials said on Monday. The Islamic movement has set up nine new courts in areas it has seized, but it is the first time the Islamists have established a court in an area they do not yet control.
Fighting surged in Mogadishu on Monday between Islamist militias and fighters loyal to the city’s last warlords, pushing the death toll over two days to at least 60 and pounding a key hospital with artillery and gunfire. Residents feared the death toll would climb even further in the most ferocious fighting in the capital since the Islamists seized it a month ago from an alliance of United States-backed warlords.
Militiamen linked to Somalia’s sharia courts faced off with a group vowing to fight Mogadishu’s new Islamist rulers on Friday as residents feared another flare-up in fighting after a month of relative peace. And in another indication of the emerging hard-line nature of the Islamists, a local sheikh was quoted in local media as saying anyone who does not practise daily prayers should die.