Gedi Flees Baido - Scotsman

[Oromia]

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1854922006

 

Somalia on brink of religious war as PM flees country

HASSAN YARE

IN BUUR HAKABA, SOMALIA

SOMALIA yesterday appeared on the brink of a war that threatens to engulf the Horn of Africa in a religious conflict between Christians and Muslims.

 

Troops of the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC), which controls Mogadishu and the south of the country, were said to be encircling the last stronghold of the weak, but internationally recognised, government and its Ethiopian allies at Baidoa.

 

The Somali prime minister, who has flown out of Baidoa, said that "war may become inevitable". Witnesses said both sides were digging trenches near a frontline town.

 

Foreign fighters, thought to be from countries such as Eritrea, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Chechnya, were reported to be arriving in Mogadishu in large numbers to join the Islamic militias' preparations for fighting.

 

The militias have been able to use the intervention of mainly Christian Ethiopia, a traditional enemy of Somalia, in support of the government as a rallying cry.

 

And prime minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, who flew into Kenya from Baidoa on Tuesday night, said: "I don't think that they are ready for dialogue, for peace and stability to prevail in Somalia. War may become inevitable."

 

He said the Islamists - who on Tuesday vowed attacks within a week unless Ethiopian forces backing the government left Somalia - were trying to surround Baidoa, the only town the Western-backed administration controls in its own nation.

 

Islamist soldiers were in the Buur Hakaba and Dinsoor areas, to the east and south of Baidoa respectively, Mr Gedi said. They had pulled back from Tiyeglow to the north after finding government troops there.

 

"All these movements are an indication that they will try to attack the seat of the government in Baidoa and the surrounding areas. Also, they are planning to surround [baidoa]," he said.

 

Mr Gedi denied Islamist accusations that the government had more than 30,000 Ethiopian troops dug in around Baidoa to protect it.

 

Addis Ababa had sent only advisers to support the president Abdullahi Yusuf's administration, he said. However, witnesses and security experts estimate roughly 10,000 Ethiopian troops are in the country.

 

The prime minister said the government's own forces, trained in Baidoa and another town, Jowhar, over the past six months, were ready for battle.

 

"I believe there are enough to challenge those who oppose the government," he said, without giving numbers.

 

"They are on alert to defend the government and the people of Somalia from the hostile aggressions and invasion of well-known terrorists in close collaboration and alliance with the so-called Islamic Courts."

 

Mr Gedi said the Islamists had several thousand of their own fighters in south Somalia, backed by 4,000 foreign militants.

 

"We are in a crucial situation. It is in between peace and war, or in between life and death," he said.

 

"Who will win? You never know. It's like a football game: who will be defeated and who will win?"

 

A Western security expert said foreign fighters had been flying into Mogadishu by the hundreds over the past few days and preparations for war were evident.

 

"On the ground, this is being backed up by reinforcements on both sides, and an influx of foreign fighters in support of the SICC," the expert said.

 

Just outside Buur Hakaba, the SICC base closest to Baidoa, witnesses reported both sides digging trenches and moving troops.

 

"I witnessed Ethiopian and government troops on high alert. After less than a mile I saw the SICC on a defence line and moving toward Daynunay," said Isman Ibrahim Hassan, a Baidoa shopkeeper who was in Buur Hakaba on his way to Mogadishu.

 

Daynunay is the forward government post on the road to Mogadishu, which passes Buur Hakaba, where both sides have been building up for months.

 

Shop owner Abdifaitah Ali Isak said by telephone from Baidoa: "I saw a convoy of Ethiopian trucks, including nine towing heavy artillery, moving to the front."

 

The Islamists deny having foreign fighters in their ranks, but experts dismiss that and al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has called on jihadists to fight foreign troops in Somalia.

 

In the southern port of Kismayu, the Islamists said they had signed up 900 men and 100 women in the three days since opening a recruiting office there.

 

"We will give them training and then they will go to the front," senior Islamist Sheikh Hassan Yacquob told Reuters.

 

Among the new recruits was 13-year-old Mohamed Mahamud. "My parents don't want me to go to war but I want to fight for my country," he said.

 

A European Union delegation visiting Mogadishu urged the Islamic militias to resume peace talks with the government, an Islamic official said.

 

The five-member delegation, including the Italian envoy to Somalia, Mario Raffaelli, met top Islamic leaders on Tuesday and was due to meet soon with members of the government in Baidoa.

 

However Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who yesterday accused the SICC of months of aggression toward Ethiopia, seemed to be preparing for war.

 

"We do not see any new thing which requires any new response ... We have been trying to get this resolved peacefully," he said.

 

A COUNTRY IN CHAOS

ISLAMIC COURTS: Somalia has not had a proper government for 15 years. Instead, warlords have been fighting for control of territory. The Union of Islamic Courts, which now controls most of southern Somalia and the capital, Mogadishu, was formed from local Islamic courts and became the country's strongest fighting force. The US says it is linked to terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, but it denies it.

 

TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT: In January 2004 warlords and politicians signed a deal to set up a new parliament. After its inauguration in Kenya, politicians elected Abdullahi Yusuf as president by a large majority. Mr Yusuf, isolated in the tiny town of Baidoa, has called for African Union peacekeepers to help disarm the militias. Ethiopian troops have moved in to help defend the parliament's members.

[Oromia]

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