Somali Islamists step in to Mogadishu vacuum
The chairman of the Alliance for the re-liberation
of Somalia, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, centre,
Abdirahman Janaqow his former deputy chairman
of the Islamic Courts Union, right, Mohamed
Osman Ali Dhagahtur, Mogadishu mayor, left.
Sheik Sharif said that they came back to
Mogadishu to maintain the peace efforts.
16 January, 2009
MOGADISHU (AFP) – An Islamist faction on Friday took over positions abandoned by Ethiopian forces retreating from Mogadishu, violating a UN-sponsored agreement on the transfer of security responsibilities in Somalia.
According to witnesses and officials, the forces of Abdirahin Ise Ado, leader of a moderate wing of the Islamist-led opposition, now control key positions in the Somali capital.
"Our forces have taken control of areas deserted by the Ethiopians in order to maintain security," said Ise Ado, a spokesman for the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), at a press conference.
Residents told AFP his forces had taken over the former defence ministry, a former pasta factory and a stadium, all positions Ethiopian troops withdrew from earlier this week.
"Islamists in dozens of vehicles took the former defence ministry building after the Ethiopians left the Shirkole area. They were chanting 'Allah is great'," witness Hasan Farah Doyow said.
The ICU is an Islamist movement which briefly controlled large parts of Somalia in 2006 before Ethiopian forces invaded and ousted them from power.
The ICU's military organisation engaged in a bruising guerrilla war against Ethiopian and Somali government troops while its political leadership scattered into exile.
It became part of an umbrella organisation founded in Eritrea called the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS).
One faction of the ARS has agreed to a peace process with the Transitional Federal Government under the auspices of the United Nations.
An agreement reached late last year in Djibouti provided for an Ethiopian withdrawal and a gradual transfer of responsibilities to joint units comprising government forces and the ARS.
This is an Aug. 21, 2006 file photo of hard-line
Somali opposition leader Sheik Hassan Dahir
Aweys. Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys said on
Thursday Jan. 15 2009 that the international
community should freeze its calls for more
peacekeepers in Somalia and urged the current
African Union force to leave Somalia. The
Eritrea-based leader of a faction of the Alliance
for the Re-Liberation of Somalia, made the call on
the same day the last Ethiopian troops left the
Somali capital as part of their gradual pullout
from the conflict-wracked country. (AP Photo)
Members of the transitional government complained that their Islamist partners in the peace process were going it alone and attempting to secure military gains on the ground.
"The insurgents partially violated the Djibouti peace deal because they took control of the positions vacated by the Ethiopian forces while the agreement reads that mixed forces should be deployed in those areas," Mogadishu Mayor Mohamed Osman Dhagahtur told reporters.
"The move can lead to another period of chaos and stir renewed clashes in the capital," he added.
A government minister who asked not to be identified told AFP that Ise Ado was behaving like a warlord and that his move could herald a new era of inter-clan fighting in the capital.
"Some members of the ICU are acting like gangs, they are initiating inter-clan fighting by seizing land and compounds which were vacated by the Ethiopians," the official said.
"Ise Ado is committing the same mistake the ICU made in 2006, at the beginning of the war, which led to the invasion of foreign troops," he said. "The ARS is a partner in a peace deal, it should not act like the conqueror of the TFG (Transitional Federal Government)."
The Shebab -- the hardline former military branch of the ICU which has spearheaded the anti-Ethiopian insurgency -- said for its part that it had no intention of joining the scramble to claim former Ethiopian bases.
"Our intention is not to take control of the those areas in Mogadishu because we should not be wasting time on this when we need to fight our remaining enemies," Shebab leader Sheikh Mukhtar Robow said.
The Shebab have said they could fight African Union peacekeepers even after Ethiopia's withdrawal from the country.
The Horn of Africa country has had no effective central authority and been embroiled in almost uninterrupted inter-clan and civil fighting since the 1991 ouster of former president Mohamed Siad Barre.