Somalia : Children throwing rocks at Ethiopian army+ latest headlines.

[RedSea]

Somali children throw rocks as Ethiopia soldiers set up base

 

 

 

MOGADISHU, Somalia Nov 13 (Garowe Online) - Ethiopian troops driving armed trucks and military transport vehicles have set up new bases along the road leading south of the capital Mogadishu a day after Islamist insurgents visited the area.

 

The Ethiopian force set up a new base at Sinka Dheer, which lies 15km south of Mogadishu and is a stretch of road where tens of thousands of civilians fled for safety.

 

Somali children threw rocks at the Ethiopian soldiers, but the soldiers did not respond in any way, witnesses told Puntland-based Radio Garowe.

 

 

Ethiopian army

Sheikh Abdirahim Isse Addow, who spoke for the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), said Islamist fighters visited three towns south of Mogadishu overnight Wednesday.

 

“We removed illegal militia roadblocks in Elasha Biyaha,” he said, while referring to a series of camps where internally displaced families fled since the Mogadishu insurgency erupted two years ago.

 

Witnesses in Elasha Biyaha and Lafole areas located between Mogadishu and Afgoye said the Islamist fighters “disappeared” as the Ethiopian army convoy advance.

 

The Ethiopian military maintains a heavy presence in Afgoye, a district in Lower Shabelle.

 

Somali police spokesman Col. Hassan Barise said government troops will soon be deployed to Lower Shabelle region “to fight against extremists.”

 

Guerrillas loyal to the ICU’s al Shabaab faction have successfully captured most of Lower Shabelle including the provincial capital Marka in a military advance that threatens the government’s authority. Full story

 

The Ethiopian army helped Somalia’s weak interim government oust ICU rebels from Mogadishu, Lower Shabelle and other regions in December 2006.

 

The Islamists quickly melted back into society and returned as masked fighters waging a bloody insurgency since that has killed nearly 10,000 people, according to human rights groups.

 

The Ethiopian government has endorsed a recent peace deal between the Somali government and a faction of the armed opposition, which called for the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces after a ceasefire is implemented.

 

But a number of Islamist factions, most notably al Shabaab, have rejected the peace pact and vowed to strengthen the insurgency.

 

Source: Garowe Online

[RedSea]

AY "there is no government in Somalia"

 

 

Somalia: 'There is no government':

 

 

 

NAIROBI, Kenya Nov 15 (Garowe Online) - Somalia's interim President, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, has told a group of lawmakers that the Horn of Africa country's interim government has collapsed.

 

Speaking on Saturday to Somali MPs at a hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, President Yusuf said he visited the United Kingdom last week for a routine medical checkup and that he is "very healthy."

 

Yusuf remarked that is "unfortunate" that the Somali interim government (TFG) was invited to Nairobi four years after it was first established there.

 

 

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf

"But the failure came from us," President Yusuf admitted, while referring to a recent conference hosted by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) whereby Ethiopian and Kenyan leaders criticized the TFG for endless feuds and failing to implement major governance initiatives.

 

He specifically linked the ousting of ex-Mogadishu Mayor Mr. Mohamed "Dheere" Omar to violence that is spiraling out of control in Mogadishu and elsewhere, including rebels seizing several key towns near the capital this month. READ: Islamist al Shabaab seize Marka port

 

"My dispute [with the Prime Minister] ever since it was said that they [opposition] be given [the post of] Mogadishu mayor, before that, most of the country was under our control and now you all know how the situation is," the Somali President told the MPs.

 

He cited a recent Islamist incursion into displaced peoples' camps near Mogadishu, asking: "How far is Elasha Biyaha from Mogadishu?"

 

President Yusuf said he asked Prime Minister Nur Adde to form "a government in the interests of the Somali people" before he can approving by signing off on the new Cabinet list.

 

"I told him that I do not endorse this [Cabinet list]...I am well-informed and I know the people who are helping this government and those who are destroying it," the President said, adding: "Today, there is no government in the country [somalia]."

 

The Somali leader urged the MPs in Nairobi to return home. Many MPs remained behind in Kenya following the IGAD conference, where the entire 275-seat parliament was invited.

 

President Yusuf' s strong words come a day after Ethiopian mediators in Addis Ababa failed to bring Yusuf and Nur Adde to common ground.

 

Some political analysts have translated President Yusuf's words as a dismissal of Prime Minister Nur Adde and the remaining members of his Cabinet.

 

Anti-government Islamist militia now control vast territory in central and southern Somalia, including towns in the outskirts of Mogadishu and Baidoa, the remaining TFG strongholds.

 

Source: Garowe Online

[RedSea]

Ciidamada Itoobiya oo bilaabay in ay ka guuraan Degmada Afgooye ee Gobolka Shabeelaha Hoose

 

 

The Ethiopian troops pulled out from all lower shabeele and Afgoye in their latest preparation to vacate Somalia for good.

 

 

 

Sabti, November 15, 2008(HOL): Wararka naga soo gaaraya Degmada Afgooye ee Gobolka Shabeelaha Hoose ayaa waxay sheegayaan in ay halkaas isaga guureen qaar ka mid ah Ciidamo Itoobiyaan ah oo deganaa muddo labo sano ku dhow.

 

Ciidamadan Itoobiyaanka ah oo deganaa Beer uu C/raxmaan Jaamac Barre ku leeyahay Degmada Afgooye iyo Buundada Degmada ayaa lagu soo warmayaa in ay u amba baxeen dhinaca Magaalada Muqdisho.

 

Maalin ka hor ayay ahayd markii Ciidamo kale oo kuwan ka horeeyay isla markaana isla degmada Afgooye ka amba baxay ay u baqooleen dhinaca Magaalada Muqdisho, iyadoo la sheegayo in Ciidamo yar oo ku haray Degmada Afgooye ay iyana isu diyaarinayaan sidii ay halkaas uga guuri lahaayeen.

 

Lama garanayo ujeedada ka dambeysa guuritaanka Ciidamada Itoobiyaanka ah ee deganaa Degmada Afgooye, wuxuuse dhaqdhaqaaqoodan ciidan ku soo beegmayaa iyadoo ay 6 maalmood ka harsan tahay muddo loo qabtay in ay Ciidamada Itoobiya uga guurayaan fariisimo ay ku leeyihiin Magaalada Muqdisho, halka dabayaaqada bisha soo socotana la filayo in ay Soomaaliya oo dhan uga guuraan, waa sida ku xusan heshiis ay Jibouti ku gaareen Dowladda Federaalka oo Ciidamada Itoobiya u yeeratay iyo Isbaheysiga Dib u xoreynta garabka Jibouti.

 

Si kastaba arrintu ha ahaatee, Ciidamada Itoobiyaanka ah ee ku sugan Magaalada Muqdisho iyo duleedyadeeda ayaa haddii ay meesha ka baxaan waxaa guryahooda dib ugu soo noqonaya dad badan oo muddo labo sano ku dhow qaxooti ku ah duleedyada Muqdisho, kuwaasi oo guryahoodii ay noqdeen aagag ciidan oo weliba ay mar kasta dagaallo ka dhacaan.

 

Salaad Iidow Xasan (Xiis), Hiiraan Online

sxiis@hiiraan.com

Mogadishu, Somalia

 

[RedSea]

Baraawe liberated. Allahu Akbar!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"A radical Islamic group"

( ignore this misinformed title) has seized another Somali port town, consolidating its control over a southwestern region that borders the Somali capital.

 

Amin Adan, a resident of the port town of Barawe, said that fighters of al-Shabab took control on Saturday without a fight because the government's allies left as soon as they heard the fighters were on their way.

 

"We don't know whether it is a tactical retreat," Adan told The Associated Press by phone from Barawe, 180 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu. Barawe is near Merka, a key port town with an airstrip that al-Shabab seized earlier this week; both are in the region of Lower Shabelle, which surrounds Mogadishu.

 

The steady and seemingly uncontested rise in recent months of al-Shabab -- meaning The Youth -- which the United States considers a terrorist organization, is a far cry from the situation in late 2006, when Somalia's UN-backed government rolled into Mogadishu supported by powerful Ethiopian troops and drove out radical Islamists intent on ruling by strict Shariah law.

 

The past two years have been a bloodbath as the Islamic fighters launched a vicious insurgency, mainly in Mogadishu, that has killed thousands of civilians and sent an estimated half of the capital's 2 million people fleeing from near-daily roadside bombings and remote-controlled explosions.

 

The fighters have seized most of southern Somalia -- advancing to within 16 kilometers of the capital on Wednesday.

 

In Mogadishu, where the government is still nominally in control, Shabab fighters carry out public punishments such as lashings and stonings, conduct training exercises and present themselves as an alternative government.