STILL YOUNG BUT BRAVE - Not like Alle u Baahne

[Jacaylbaro]

MOGADISHU, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Somali teenager Osman Yusuf says he ran out of luck the day Ethiopian troops poured mortars, rockets and bullets on his Islamist-held frontline position.

 

Because he did not die.

 

Like hundreds of other fighters, the 19-year-old was forced into hiding after a lightning offensive led by Ethiopian soldiers defending Somalia's weak interim government routed rival Islamists from their strongholds.

 

"I joined the war just to die and go to heaven," Yusuf told Reuters by telephone from a hideout in southern Somalia.

 

"My comrades-in-arms are now resting peacefully in heaven. I am very unlucky."

 

Against his parents' wishes, Yusuf volunteered three months ago to join what the Islamists depicted as a holy war against invading forces from Christian-led Ethiopia.

 

For a month, he learned to handle a rifle, practised drills and mastered combat techniques in a Mogadishu military training centre, crammed with scores of young men lured by the same promise of a glorious death.

 

Sent to Buur Hakaba, one of the main fronts in southern Somalia, Yusuf fought alongside hardened combatants and inexperienced students whose schools were closed by the Somalia Islamic Courts Council.

 

Over the roar of mortar and artillery duels, Islamist fighters were said to chant passages from the Koran as they went to battle in thorny bush and scrubland.

 

Yusuf said he watched most of his friends die.

 

"The fighting was intense. Bullets, mortars and heavy rockets were flying everywhere," he quietly recalled.

 

"I saw my comrades falling one-by-one. It was a tempting time for any coward to run."

 

"NEVER SURRENDER"

 

After surviving the two-week war that saw the Islamists rapidly lose the territory they controlled for six months, Yusuf still dreams of martyrdom.

 

"I hung on and fought until we pulled out after the Ethiopian onslaught. They showered us with artillery for hours," he said. "The Ethiopians are superior militarily, but we are stronger spiritually."

 

"We will make it very hard for them in Somalia by using all available tactics."

 

Somalis fear the Islamists, thrashed in conventional warfare, may now launch a guerrilla insurgency. Al Qaeda urged the Islamists to start Iraq-style attacks.

 

President Abdullahi Yusuf, whose government is seen by many Somalis as a puppet of hated Ethiopia, extended an olive branch to the Islamists by offering them amnesty.

 

But the group has refused, vowing to fight on.

 

Despite the rhetoric, hundreds of fighters shed or burnt their uniforms within hours of the Islamists fleeing the capital, which they seized in June from U.S.-backed warlords.

 

In the city which has seen two sets of rulers rise and fall in the past six months, one former Islamist commander explained why he swapped sides.

 

"Since we were beaten, I decided to just give up," said the fighter, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals.

 

"Life must go on. I don't see a reason why I should continue fighting. We have no option but to join the government in order to end the chaos in our country."

 

But, fired by religious fervour, Yusuf said he will never give up. "I will never surrender to our enemy Ethiopia. If I die I will rest in peace. God willing I will go to heaven."

[Taliban]

JABAD MA LA DEGTAY, JIDIIN MA WADA CUNTEEN, JID MA WADA MARTEEN, JIHAADSE MA WADA GASHEEN.

 

Allahu Akbar.