Changing perceptions.. Somali government takes over..

[General Duke]

Somali Government Asserts Authority As It Reopens Borders

 

(RTTNews) - In a clear signal that the Somalia's new powerful transitional government is all set to assert its authority over the violence torn country, the once weak and fragmented administration on Tuesday announced reopening of air and sea borders from Wednesday.

 

"From Wednesday, the airport and the seaport are open and airlines can come in. We imposed the border seal for security reasons," Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi told a press conference in Mogadishu.

 

The Somali government with the backing of Ethiopian troops dealt a severe blow to the Union of Islamic Courts - UIC in a two-week offensive and captured most of the country, and forcing a mass retreat and desertion of Islamist fighters over the past few days.

 

However Gedi's call to Mogadishu residents and militias to surrender their arms on the first day of a 72-hour grace period went unheeded. On Monday, Gedi had urged Somalis to hand over their weapons or have them confiscated by his troops after the deadline Thursday.

 

Mogadishu's old port and the former UIC headquarters, the two weapon drop-off points wore a deserted look with not a single gun being left behind. Somalian troops were manning the seaport and the airport, which the Ethiopians attacked with fighter jets last week.

 

Kismayo, the last Islamist stronghold to be taken by the joint troops, was also calm, with the warlord who once ruled the port town reclaiming his authority.

 

Meanwhile, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said his forces, which boosted the government troops in a two-week offensive using fighter jets and tanks, could pull out in two weeks. "We will go out as soon as possible. It could be in two weeks in order to achieve stability," Zenawi told parliament in the capital Addis Ababa.

[General Duke]

Islamists left behind try to make sense of new Somalia

 

Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times

 

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

(01-02) 04:00 PST Mogadishu, Somalia -- Their leaders slipped out of this capital under the cover of darkness. The plum jobs are gone. Their former offices were the first to be looted in a spasm of vandalism last week by angry young men.

 

On Monday, Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi renewed his offer of amnesty to midlevel officials and fighters of Somalia's now-defunct Islamic Courts Union who put down their weapons. He also issued a three-day deadline for everyone in Mogadishu to turn in their guns.

 

But for the Islamists left behind in Somalia's long-troubled capital, the ordeal is not over. While top Islamic officials escaped south toward Kenya last week, thousands of employees, fighters and other court supporters remain trapped in Mogadishu, struggling to comprehend the new reality.

 

Once part of the city's new elite, many have gone into hiding, fearful about retribution or worried that enemies might finger them as Islamic Court collaborators to Somali soldiers, Ethiopian troops allied with the 2-year-old transitional government, or the warlord militias reasserting control in the city.

 

On Monday, weary Mogadishu residents tried to return to normalcy after a week of turmoil and a three-day Eid holiday. Shops and offices reopened. People ventured out on the streets. Only a handful of soldiers were visible patrolling the congested roads or guarding government buildings. Ethiopian troops seen in public generally drew large crowds of Somali onlookers, who would stand together in groups and observe the soldiers from afar.

 

Most of the city quickly has adapted to the fall of the Islamists, resuming activities once discouraged. Cinemas reopened. Children played soccer again on the beach. Vendors of khat, the leafy stimulant, resumed the daily deliveries in the marketplace.

 

But supporters of the courts remained largely in the background. Some still defend the courts and predict resurgence of the once-powerful alliance of Islamic leaders. But others insist they were misled and exploited by an organization that fell victim to infighting and greed.

 

"It was a black day for Somalia," said one midlevel court official, referring to when Islamist fighters abandoned Mogadishu on Thursday to advancing troops from Ethiopia and Somalia's transitional government.

 

The official, who was too afraid to have his name or former position revealed, said the courts began to split in recent weeks into two factions. One wanted to pursue negotiations with the weak transitional government; another was pushing for an attack on Baidoa, the temporary seat of the government. The latter group won out, only to find their fighters routed by Somali forces and more than 4,000 Ethiopian troops.

 

Nevertheless, he said he had no inkling Wednesday that the movement he devoted his life to would collapse the next day. Co-workers phoned him that evening with rumors that his bosses had fled. It wasn't until he heard the radio the next morning that he realized the courts had disintegrated.

 

"I was just an employee," he said. "They didn't invite us to go with them."

 

Now he's scrambling to find another job to support his children and turning to his clan for protection.

 

Afrah Adan Gagale, 27, a former Islamist fighter, said the court's leadership was corrupted by power and its sudden success. The courts seized Mogadishu in June after a surprising victory over U.S.-backed warlords, bringing a degree of stability to a country that had been without an effective government since 1991.

 

"Their ambition was high, but they had no plan," Gagale said.

 

He blamed the court militia's defeat on conflicting orders from superior officers, who first called for an attack and then a retreat. Many court supporters accused top security officer Yusuf Mohammed Siyad of mishandling the standoff. It was Siyad who issued the seven-day ultimatum for Ethiopian troops to leave the country and later publicly welcomed Islamic jihadists from around the world to come and fight in Somalia. Such rhetoric pushed Ethiopia to attack the Islamists on Christmas Eve.

 

"We could have stood up to the Ethiopians, but we were told to retreat," he said. "It was a betrayal." He added that the courts collapsed before paying fighters their $200 monthly salary.

 

Jamila Abdi Abdullahi, 21, is the mother of two small children and the wife of one of the Islamist militias' commanders. She and her husband were adherents to one of the courts' most hard-line factions, known as Shabab. She first worked as a nurse, and later picked up a gun to join fighters near the Ethiopia border last week.

 

Her husband fled with other Islamic leaders Thursday. She has stayed indoors since, afraid of being attacked.

 

She hoped to join her husband in Kismayo and resume the struggle against the government. But by Monday, Islamist fighters had again retreated, this time toward the Kenya border. Government soldiers held the port city of Kismayo.

 

"My work is to defend Islam and help those defending against the enemy," she said, predicting the courts would return to power soon. "Next year, we will be back in Mogadishu."

[General Duke]

Somali leaders claim full control

 

The transitional government's success will be judged on whether it can restore central rule [EPA]

 

 

Somalia's prime minister has said he does not expect any more major conflicts with fleeing Union of Islamic Courts fighters.

 

The statement by Ali Mohamed Gedi came on Tuesday as government forces and Ethiopian soldiers pursued the remnants of the militia, which until two weeks ago controlled most of southern Somalia.

 

 

 

 

Gedi said Islamic Courts fighters "are scattered in the bush" and that "small fights can take place, but we are trying to destroy them".

 

He said several fighters had surrendered to government forces.

 

Meanwhile, two Ethiopian soldiers were killed in an ambush in the country's southern region.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday also marked the start of a three-day armistice for Somalis to voluntarily surrender their arms to government-designated centres.

 

But despite government claims, reports suggested that the armistice centres have not been a success and even with a UN arms embargo on Somalia, Mogadishu remains one of the most gun-infested cities in the world.

 

The government's success will be judged on whether it can install itself in Mogadishu, the capital, and restore central rule to the country for the first time since 1991.

 

An Al Jazeera correspondent said on Tuesday that Mogadishu residents felt collecting weapons at this time was not a good idea because the government had not yet deployed policemen in the city and security remained a big concern.

 

Organisations and individuals, mostly businessmen, have expressed the fear of theft and robbery in the absence of firearms for self-defence, he said.

 

No surrender

 

For their part, Islamic Courts leaders have said they will not surrender to the government.

 

Abdirahim Ali Mudey, a spokesman for the militia, was reported as saying: "If the world thinks we are dead, they should know we are alive. We will rise out of the ashes."

 

 

Somali transitional government soldiers patrol

the streets of the capital, Mogadishu [AFP]

 

He said that any power the government wielded was thanks to its backing by Ethiopian forces and predicted a return of the "chaos and violence" Somalia knew before the Islamic Courts' campaigns.

 

As if on cue, suspected Islamic Courts fighters attacked an Ethiopian camp, killing two Ethiopian soldiers and wounding another one, AFP reported on Tuesday.

 

Local officials and residents said said the assailants emerged from a jungle and opened fire at an Ethiopian camp in Jilib, about 100km north of the key southern port town of Kismayo, which the Islamic Courts lost on Monday.

 

"The first insurgency attack has been carried out," said Mohamoud Dahir Farah, the chairman of the local authority.

 

Ethiopian backing

 

Ethiopia, which has backed the Somali government, described its operations in Somalia as being within weeks of completion.

 

In an interview aired by Al Jazeera on Tuesday, Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister, said that his country was not an invading or an occupation force, and that his troops would pull out in two weeks.

 

Ethiopia did not choose to enter Mogadishu, but was asked to do so by tribal leaders, he said.

 

Separately, Zenawi told the country's parliament that Ethiopian troops were not peacekeepers and it would be too costly to keep them in Somalia for much longer.

 

He said "we will stay in Somalia for a few weeks, maybe for two weeks", and called on the international community to act quickly to send peacekeeping forces to Somalia.

 

"It is up to the international community to deploy a peacekeeping force in Somalia without delay"

 

Meles Zenawi,

Ethiopian Prime Minister

 

"It is up to the international community to deploy a peacekeeping force in Somalia without delay to avoid a vacuum and the resurgence of extremists and terrorists."

 

Somalia's transitional government and its Ethiopian allies have for a long time accused the Islamic Courts of harbouring al-Qaeda activists.

 

Although the militia denies any link to al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda's leader, and Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's deputy, have issued statements saying they see Somalia as a battleground in their global war on the West.

 

Three suspects wanted by the US for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa are believed to be Islamic Courts leaders.

 

Kenyan support

 

In other news, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, Somalia's president, met with Mwai Kibaki, the Kenyan president, in Mombasa on Tuesday.

 

Kibaki said Kenya would not be used as a refuge for people seeking to destabilise governments in the region.

 

Kenya, which has voiced support for the Somali government, has already deployed troops and armoured vehicles along its 675km border with Somalia in an attempt to seal its border with Somalia, officials said.

 

Anthony Kibuchi, the Kenyan provincial police commander on the border, said on Monday that 10 foreigners had been arrested as they tried to cross into Kenya.

 

Border post hit

 

In a related development, Kenyan officials said four Ethiopian helicopters pursuing the Islamic Courts missed their target and bombed a Kenyan border post, prompting Kenyan fighter planes to rush to the area.

 

A top Kenyan police official, who requested to remain unnamed, said the helicopters targeted the Somali town of Dhobley, about 3km from the frontier line, only to end up dropping bombs on Kenya's Har Har border post.

 

There was no immediate mention of the casualties and damage on the grounds hit.

 

"Four military helicopters flew over our town several times and bombarded somewhere on the Kenyan side of the border," said Mohamud Ilmi Osman, a Dhobley resident.