Stability in Somalia short-lived

[Wisdom_Seeker]

Warlord hands over weapons on Saturday, but chaos still rules

From Wire Reports

 

DAKAR, Senegal — More than a decade after the U.S. and U.N. pulled failed peacekeeping missions out of Somalia, African governments are under growing pressure to mount a new intervention in one of the continent's most violent and unstable nations.

 

The continent's leaders may have a tough time succeeding, however, judging from past peacekeeping missions and the African-led force currently deployed to maintain security in Darfur, which has been beset by numerous problems.

 

Somalia has had no real peace since 1991, when warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and turned their guns on each other, plunging the Horn of Africa country into chaos.

 

A conservative Islamic movement brought some stability after it seized much of southern Somalia last year, but the group's hold on the country was short-lived. Ethiopian and Somali troops routed the movement's fighters in a lightning-quick campaign that began in late December.

 

Now Ethiopia is anxious to withdraw its troops, and many fear they may leave behind a power vacuum that could spawn yet more bloodshed.

 

Meanwhile in Mogadishu, Somalia, the last major warlord to withhold support from Somalia's government surrendered his weapons and militiamen on Saturday — a boost for a fledgling leadership that still faces threats of guerrilla attacks from the Islamic movement that fled the capital.

 

Mohamed Dheere, one of the most feared warlords in Somalia, gave the army chief 23 trucks mounted with heavy weapons and ordered 220 of his fighters to report for training at government camps.

 

The handover took place during a ceremony in Dheere's stronghold of Jowhar, 50 miles north of the capital of Mogadishu, said Abdirahman Dinari, the government spokesman.

 

But fears of an Islamic fundamentalist insurgency grew following an ambush Saturday morning on a convoy of Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu. The Ethiopians returned fire, killing a man and a woman on the side of the road, said Hawa Malin, a Mogadishu resident who saw the attack. Two other people died on the way to the hospital, medical officials said.

 

Late Friday, government troops also repelled an attack on the Somali president's palace. There were no reports of casualties.

 

A leader in Somalia's Council of Islamic Courts said his group was responsible for the attacks, calling it part of a "new uprising by the Somali people."

 

"The only solution can be reconciliation and talks between the transitional federal government and the Islamic courts," said Ahmed Qare, deputy chairman of the council.

 

The U.N.-backed government — with key military backing from Ethiopia — drove the Islamic movement that had challenged it out of Mogadishu and much of the rest of southern Somalia weeks ago.

 

But Islamic leaders have repeatedly threatened a guerrilla war as long as Ethiopian troops remain in Somalia to support the government.

 

The United States and the European Union have called on the government to hold broad-based peace talks to promote reconciliation, but so far only clan leaders and warlords have been involved in the process and religious leaders have been excluded. :confused: