Taliban-like regime may be rising in Somalia

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Taliban-like regime may be rising in Somalia

Islamic militants capture capital in Horn of Africa nation

 

Monday, June 5, 2006; Posted: 1:19 p.m. EDT (17:19 GMT)

 

 

The advance against a secular alliance rumored to be backed by Washington comes after weeks of bloody fighting and 15 years of anarchy in the Horn of Africa nation, raising fears that Somalia could fall under the sway of al Qaeda.

 

"We won the fight against the enemy of Islam; Mogadishu is under control of its people," said Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, chairman of the Islamic Courts Union, on a radio broadcast. The militia now controls a 65-mile (100-kilometer) radius around the capital after fighting off a secular alliance of warlords.

 

The Islamic militia is gaining ground just as the U.N.-backed interim government struggles to assert control outside its base in Baidoa, 155 miles (249 kilometers) from Mogadishu. Weapons prices soared there Monday amid fears that the militia could head next to Baidoa.

 

The militia is the first group to consolidate control over all of Mogadishu's neighborhoods since the last government collapsed in 1991 and warlords took over, dividing the impoverished country of 8 million into a patchwork of rival fiefdoms.

 

Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, said the Islamic militia's victory in Mogadishu was a major turning point in the country's history.

 

 

"It is exactly the same thing that happened with the rise to power of the Taliban," he said, adding that the extremists are "using the people's weariness of violence, rape and civil war" to gain support for a government based on Islamic law.

 

The battle between the militia and the secular alliance has been intensifying in recent months, with more than 300 people killed and 1,700 wounded -- many of them civilians caught in the crossfire of grenades, machine guns and mortars.

 

Alliance leaders could not be reached for comment Monday and had likely fled Mogadishu. One of them, warlord Mohamed Dheere, was believed to be in Ethiopia seeking reinforcements.

 

The United States is widely believed to be backing the secular alliance in an attempt to root out any al Qaeda members operating in the Horn of Africa, but American officials have declined to comment. The United States has not carried out any direct action in Somalia since the deaths of 18 servicemen in a 1993 battle depicted in the film "Black Hawk Down."

 

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said recently that three al Qaeda leaders indicted in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania are being sheltered by Islamic leaders in Mogadishu.

 

The same al Qaeda cell is believed responsible for the 2002 suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya that killed 15 people and a simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner.

 

The Islamic militants and their secular rivals began competing for influence in earnest after a U.N.-backed interim government slowly began to gain international recognition. The weak government, wracked by infighting, has not been able to enter the capital because of the violence.

 

Interim Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi recently fired four ministers who were part of the secular alliance, leaving the alliance without any support in the government.

 

Mogadishu residents expressed relief at Monday's relative peace, but they had mixed responses to the Islamic militia's advance.

 

"The victory of Islamic Courts is a major step toward a lasting peaceful settlement in Mogadishu," said Somali economist Abdinasir Ahmed. "We are tired of the deception and rhetoric of the warlords."

 

Computer engineer Abdulqaadir Bashir disagreed. "The Islamic clerics want to be like the Taliban regime in Afghanistan," he said. "People have no hope at all."