Kismayo: hundreds of militiamen disarmed...flag-downer arrested!

[xiinfaniin]

By Sahra Abdi Ahmed

 

KISMAYO, Somalia (Reuters) - Somali Islamists disarmed hundreds of militiamen in the port of Kismayo on Wednesday, seizing battlewagons and guns in a move to further cement their control over the city they took this week.

 

 

Officials from the Juba Valley Alliance, an independent authority which controlled the region around Somalia's third largest city before Islamists took over on Monday, gathered in an open field to present their weapons.

 

"It is a big relief for me," said Yusuf Mire Mahmud, a lawmaker and deputy to the warlord who had controlled the region before fleeing. He said he had handed over 18 technicals, trucks mounted with guns, and 300 militia fighters.

 

"I'm a free man now I can do anything I want or go anywhere I want," he told Reuters at the field where the Islamists then tested the machine guns.

 

The Islamists seized Kismayo without firing a shot, expanding their control of southcentral Somalia since capturing Mogadishu in June, and effectively flanking the weak interim government, based in a provincial town, on three sides.

 

Their takeover of Kismayo was met with two days of protests, one of them violent. They have since imposed an overnight curfew and arrested several protesters.

 

One Islamist official said remaining Juba Valley Alliance officials were free to stay in Kismayo as long as they did not interfere with security.

 

"They can stay on if they want but there are no longer part of the administration here," Ibrahim Shukri said.

 

Shukri added that the militiamen who handed over their weapons were pro-Islamist and would be taken to a "rehabilitation" center where they will be weaned off khat, a mild leafy stimulant, among other things.

 

ISLAMIST MILITIAMAN ARRESTED

 

Islamist sources who declined to be named said they had arrested one of their militiamen who on Monday had lowered a Somali flag moments after their fighters rode into Kismayo.

 

The move further inflamed residents, who burned tires and threw stones to protest the takeover. One boy was killed after Islamists shot at the crowd.

 

However, some have since said they were happy to join the movement: "I have no problem joining them," former Kismayo militiaman Mahamud Abdi, said. "In fact, I'm very happy."

 

The government, the 14th attempt at effective central rule since the 1991 ouster of a dictator, views the port's capture as breaching a ceasefire agreement reached at peace talks in Sudan.

 

But diplomats who met Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi in neighboring Kenya said on Tuesday he was still committed to the talks, despite expressing pessimism the day before.

 

Analysts fear the Islamist-government standoff could spark a major regional crisis in the Horn of Africa.

 

To bolster the militarily weak interim government, neighboring Ethiopia, long the most powerful country in the region, has sent more troops across its border, residents said.

 

Addis Ababa has repeatedly denied this and Islamist leaders have repeatedly urged Somalis to defend their country against an Ethiopian military presence.

 

The Islamists and the government are due to meet in the Sudanese capital Khartoum at the end of October for a third round of talks.

 

Source: Reuters, Sept 27, 2006

[Santaaro-Saaxiib]

flag-downer arrested!

Nice recovery.