By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN
The Associated Press
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Some 3,000 Muslim militiamen have taken a stand in the Indian Ocean port city of Kismayo, and the U.S. government believes they may include four suspects in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Kismayo is about 100 miles from Kenya, and the Somali government and its Ethiopian allies hope to close the net before the al-Qaida suspects can slip out of the country.
Several thousand Somali and Ethiopian troops were advancing on Kismayo Saturday from about 75 miles north of the city.
"We are going to advance from different directions to try and encircle the city and force the Islamic group to minimize the loss of civilians," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari told The Associated Press.
The Council of Islamic Courts, the umbrella group for the Islamic movement that ruled Mogadishu for six months, has pledged to continue its fight despite losing capital and other key towns in recent days.
"I want to tell you that the Islamic courts are still alive and ready to fight against the enemy of Allah," Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, the group's leader, told residents in Kismayo on Saturday.
"We left Mogadishu in order to prevent bloodshed in the capital, but that does not mean we lost the holy war against our enemy," he added. The group wants to transform Somalia into a strict Islamic state.
The Islamic Courts movement had grown steadily in power for six months, until the dramatic entry into the war by Ethiopian troops last week. Ethiopian soldiers have swept quickly across the country since Sunday, retaking territory captured by the Islamic movement earlier this year.
Ethiopia is a close U.S. ally and capturing suspected al-Qaida terrorists is a major priority for the United States in the Horn of Africa.
The U.S. has a counterterrorism task force based in neighboring Djibouti and has been training Kenyan and Ethiopian forces how to protect their borders.
The Navy's Fifth Fleet also has a maritime task force patrolling in international waters off the Somali coast. The mission of both task forces is to capture or kill al-Qaida elements in the Horn of Africa and will act if given a clear opportunity.
Also Saturday, Somalia's president flew to the outskirts of Mogadishu aboard an Ethiopian military helicopter, as his government began its move to the battle-scarred city. President Abdullahi Yusuf met with key Somali elders in a bid to smooth the city's takeover. He also pledged to bring more troops to help secure the region.
Although his U.N.-backed government was established in 2004, it has never had control over Mogadishu or many other parts of the lawless country until Ethiopia stepped in. His transitional government has been forced to base itself in Baidoa, a dusty agricultural town 150 miles away.
Many in overwhelmingly Muslim Somalia are skeptical of the government's reliance on neighboring Ethiopia, a traditional rival with a large Christian population and one of Africa's largest armies. Ethiopia and Somalia fought a bloody war in 1977.
Yusuf said Ethiopian troops would stay in Somalia as "the government is not up to the level of taking back the entire country overnight." He vowed to pursue those still willing to fight for the Islamic group.
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Associated Press writers Salad Duhul and Les Neuhaus in Mogadishu, Nasteex Dahir Farah in Kismayo and Elizabeth A. Kennedy in Baidoa contributed to this report.
Source: AP, Dec 30, 2006