The Situation according to various foreign media

N.O.R.F · December 10, 2006

MOGADISHU (AFP) Dec. 8, 2006 - Somalia's powerful Islamist movement threatened to attack the seat of the country's weak Ethiopian-backed government after the two sides fought pitched battles south of the town where it sits.

"We have defeated them and we are not going to stop our fighting," said Abdurahim Ali Muddey, the spokesman for the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS). "We are going to attack and take Baidoa from them."

Speaking to AFP in Mogadishu, Muddey said Friday's clashes, which he blamed on the government and its Ethiopian allies, would be a precursor to an all-out fight for Baidoa, the only major town in the country that is still in government hands.

"It was aggression against the Islamic courts," he said. "We have been attacked and we are not going to stop attacking enemy bases wherever they are in the country, including Baidoa."

Heavy fighting erupted at around midday (0900 GMT) at a small trading post called Dinsoor, 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Baidoa.

After hours of artillery battles, each side claimed victory.

Sheikh Mohamed Ibrahim Bilal, the Islamist commander in Somalia's Bay region, said "at least 50 people" had been killed in the fighting and many others wounded.

That figure could not be independently confirmed.

"We killed more than 30 from the enemy side and took 13 as prisoners of war," he told AFP. He said the Islamists had "lost a number of mujahideens in the fighting" but did not give an exact figure for their casualties.

However another Islamist official, who asked not to be named, said: "We lost more than 20 fighters."

Muddey said the Islamists were closing in on the seat of government.

"After the fighting, we took four armed vehicles from the enemy and we are 80 kilometres away from Baidoa," he said.

The government was not immediately available to comment on the toll or the threat of attack.

But it also claimed victory in Friday's fighting in Dinsoor, which came two days after the United Nations Security Council endorsed the deployment of African peacekeepers to protect the enfeebled government.

"The Islamists attacked our forces at bases near Dinsoor and we fought but they have suffered very much today," Deputy Defence Minister Salat Ali Jelle told reporters in Baidoa. "We completely defeated them."

"This fighting (had) been expected for a long time because these terrorists have been expanding even when we were looking for peace talks. Today they have met their fate," he said.

The government and the Islamists, some of whom are accused of having links to Al-Qaeda, had been girding for battle near Dinsoor for several days.

Government commander Colonel Abdulsak Afgadud described the clashes as the "heaviest of all the recent encounters" with the Islamists. But he declined to give casualty figures or comment on the Islamists' allegations that neighboring Ethiopian was supporting the weak interim administration.

France24.com

N.O.R.F · December 10, 2006

Fighting continues in Somalia

Fighters from Somalia's Islamic Courts and pro-government soldiers have clashed in a second day of fighting.

The fighting occurred 40km from the interim government's headquarters in Baidoa, stoking fears that the escalation in violence will erupt into an all-out war.

According to one witness, government forces and Ethiopian troops, pushed back by fighters from the Somali Islamic Courts Council [sICC] on Friday, returned to the area early on Saturday with heavily armed vehicles.

The Islamic Courts control much of southern Somalia.

Mohamed Ibrahim Bilal, an Islamic Courts official, said that the government had launched a counterattack at Rama'addey village, while Ali Mohamed Gedi, the prime minister, claimed that Islamic Courts fighters had attacked government positions.

"The Ethiopian troops along with government troops have counterattacked our militia ... The fighting is going on," said Bilal.

The SICC announced a ban, by radio, on trucks going to Baidoa from Mogadishu in order to cut off the government's food supply.

Calm before the storm

But Salad Ali Jelle, the government's deputy defence minister, said commanders in the field reported no clashes on Saturday.

"War could start any minute because we are so close to each other," he said.

The UN Security Council this week unanimously approved a controversial resolution backing deployment of peacekeepers in Somalia, ostensibly to stave off conflict between the Western and Ethiopian-backed interim government and the Islamic Courts.

The Islamic Courts strongly opposed the resolution to provide troops to help the government build up its security forces and begin to impose its authority.

Proxy war

The two sides, including Ethiopian troops backing the government, fought on Friday in a neighbouring village along a front line that the Islamic Courts fighters set up to encircle half of Baidoa.

Military experts say that a full-blown war may drag in neighbouring countries.

Ethiopia has denied any involvement, but security experts say the Horn of Africa military power has between 5,000 and 10,000 troops inside Somalia.

The Mogadishu-based Islamic Courts have declared holy war against Ethiopia, whose troops they view as invaders.

A recent report to the UN said at least nine nations were funnelling vast quantities of military hardware into Somalia, a cauldron where many countries have fought their battles by proxy in the 15 years of anarchy since the last president was ousted.

Analysts fear that Ethiopia and Eritrea, which backs the Islamic Courts, will confront each other if their Somali allies go to war.

Al Jazeera English

N.O.R.F · December 10, 2006

Second day of clashes in Somalia

Somali government forces backed by Ethiopian troops have clashed with Islamists for a second day in western Somalia, officials and witnesses say.

The fighting took place in villages about 80km (50 miles) south-west of the government base in Baidoa, they say.

Witnesses have reported artillery exchanges, but so far there have been no confirmed reports of casualties.

The clashes come just days after the UN approved plans to send peacekeepers to Somalia - a move the Islamists reject.

Officials from Somalia's Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) said the forces of Somalia's transitional government had launched a counter-attack after being pushed back by Islamists on Friday.

This was contradicted by Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Ghedi, who said the Islamists had attacked government positions, according to the Associated Press news agency.

All-out war fears

Somali's government and Ethiopia have consistently denied that Ethiopian troops are in Somalia, but their presence has been widely reported by residents and officials from the UIC.

Addis Ababa, however, admits to having hundreds of military trainers in Baidoa, the only town the government controls.

If the Ethiopian involvement is confirmed, it would be the first time that Islamist and Ethiopian troops have come into direct contact.

BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut says the clashes could be the opening shots of the long-anticipated war for control of Somalia.

The UIC has taken control of most of southern Somalia since taking the capital Mogadishu in June.

Last week, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said African nations who would contribute to the proposed force should persuade the UIC that it would not be an "invasion force".

The resolution, adopted unanimously by the UN Security Council, said the government represented "the only route to achieving peace and stability" in Somalia, which has been without effective central government since 1991.

bbc.co.uk

N.O.R.F · December 10, 2006

Clashes fuel fears of war in Horn of Africa

Fierce fighting between the Islamist militias and government forces in Somalia threatens to ignite the whole region

Xan Rice in Nairobi

Sunday December 10, 2006

The Observer

Heavy clashes between Islamist militiamen and forces loyal to Somalia's government continued for a second day yesterday, as fears of an imminent war in the Horn of Africa mounted.

The fighting centred around Maddoy, 25 miles south of Baidoa, the temporary capital and the only town that the weak transitional federal government controls. Witnesses who reported heavy shelling said Ethiopian troops formed part of the government contingent.

While information remains sketchy - due to the dangers in Somalia even local correspondents for the international news agencies are reporting on the clashes from Mogadishu, 150 miles to the east - both sides suffered casualties, perhaps more than two dozen.

The fighting appear to be the fiercest yet between militiamen allied to the Somali Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC), which controls most of south-central Somalia, and Ethiopian-backed government troops. The SCIC has been steadily approaching Baidoa in recent weeks and has taken most of the surrounding towns and villages.

Salad Ali Jelle, the government's Deputy Defence Minister, told Reuters yesterday that 'war could start any minute because we are so close to each other'.

Many analysts and diplomats in Nairobi see a full-scale conflict in the coming weeks and months as inevitable. Though peace talks are scheduled to resume in Khartoum on Friday, a government spokesman said that they were 'a waste of time' and both sides have continued preparing for war.

With Ethiopia firmly backing the government - it has sent at least 6,000 troops into the country, analysts believe - and Eritrea taking the side of the Courts, the looming conflict could plunge the entire region into turmoil.

The latest clashes came two days after a controversial United Nations security council resolution authorising the deployment of African troops to protect the government. President Abdullahi Yusuf's regime remains fragile and fractured, and has been unable to win over the Somali population since its formation two years ago. Its position has been made increasingly tenuous by the rise in power of the Courts, which took control of the capital, Mogadishu, last June, ending 15 years of rule by warlords and bringing law and order.

Though they were set up to dispense justice and carry out social programmes, the Courts soon proved a strong political force. The SCIC contains moderate clerics seeking a stable Islamic state as well as hardliners whose goal is to reunite a 'greater Somalia' that includes parts of Kenya and Ethiopia.

The SCIC are also protecting terror suspects with links to al-Qaeda, although the number and provenance of the jihadists is unknown. For the US, however, their presence is a sign that the Courts are a threat to world peace that must be contained. Washington helped the Mogadishu warlords in their failed struggle against the SCIC earlier this year, a strategy that unwittingly helped the SCIC. In Somalia the warlords and the concept of foreign intervention arouse similar loathing.

The US strategy has attracted similar controversy. Despite warnings from analysts that the deployment of foreign peacekeepers would be viewed as taking sides and could trigger a war, America pushed strongly for last Wednesday's security council resolution. European Union countries, which are sceptical about whether deployment is wise, or even feasible, demanded that the peacekeeping force exclude front line states such as Ethiopia.

Even so the reaction from the Courts was immediate. Condemning the resolution, the SCIC vowed to fight any foreign troops and to remove the Ethiopians by force. While troops from Ethiopia have the clear advantage militarily - the Courts do not have an air force or tanks - analysts say any conflict is likely to be protracted because the Islamist militias will adopt guerrilla tactics.

guardian.co.uk

N.O.R.F · December 10, 2006

Islamic militiamen fighting Ethiopian troops in southern Somalia

By Mohamed Sheikh Nor, Associated Press Writer

Published: 09 December 2006

Islamic militiamen are fighting Ethiopian troops in a southern Somalia town, a top Islamic official said yesterday.

If true, it will be the first time the Islamic militia that control most of southern Somalia will have fought directly with Ethiopian troops.

"New fighting has started in Dinsor. Our forces have been raided by Ethiopian troops, so people get up and fight against the Ethiopians," Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed told a crowd of hundreds after Friday prayers.

"Stand up and overcome the enemies who have invaded our land," he told the people, who had gathered to protest a U.N. resolution allowing an African peacekeeping force into Somalia.

Islamic militiamen seized Dinsor on Saturday without encountering any resistance or firing a single shot. On Sunday, hundreds of Somali transitional government troops backed by Ethiopian troops began amassing near Dinsor, sparking fears in the town of heavy fighting, forcing dozens to flee.

The Council of Islamic Courts, the official name of the group that controls much of southern Somalia, organized protests in three major towns against a UN resolution to allow an African peacekeeping force for Somalia and easing an arms embargo so the force can operate in Somalia.

Earlier Friday, an Islamic courts official claimed that Ethiopian troops had shelled the central Somalia town of Bandiradley, while residents of a nearby village said they had seen Ethiopian troops and tanks take up new positions near the town.

Protesters in the western Somalia town of Belet Weyne chanted slogans such as "Down with the impartial resolution from the United Nations Security Council," as did their fellow demonstrators in the port town of Kismayo and Mogadishu.

In total, thousands demonstrated against Wednesday's UN resolution allowing for an African peacekeeping force for Somalia and easing a 14-year arms embargo on Somalia so such a force can equip itself.

However, the resolution stopped Somalia's neighbors - Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya - from contributing troops.

Friday's shelling of Bandiradley, have shelled, about 390 miles northeast of the capital, Mogadishu, would be the second time in 10 days that the Ethiopians are reported to fired at the town that is controlled by the Islamic courts.

"Ethiopian soldiers have massed around Bandiradley soon after the arms embargo had been lifted and started firing missiles toward our positions," said Sheikh Abdullahi Ali Hashi, a spokesman for the Council of Islamic Courts told The Associated Press by telephone from central Somalia.

Hashi said that the Ethiopian troops made the attack accompanied by militiamen loyal to warlord Abdi Hassan Awale, who is also known as Abdi Qeybdiid.

Eyewitnesses in Dagaari village near Bandiradley said that they saw hundreds of Ethiopian troops and tanks take up new positions near the town in coordination with militiamen from the northeastern semi autonomous region of Puntland and Qeybdiid's militia.

They said that this new movement puts these forces and their rival Islamic courts' militias only 1.2 miles apart.

"Ethiopians and their ally regional militia have increased their military presence here. Now they are advancing towards Bandiradley," said a local resident on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals.