Wednesday, November 08, 2006
The government-allied Juba Valley Alliance (JVA) said it was set to defend itself from advancing Islamist forces moving toward its stronghold in Gedo region, which suffered huge floods overnight when a river burst its banks.
"Islamic courts militias are preparing to wage an attack on us here," JVA commander Abdullahi Sheikh Fartag told AFP by phone from Bardheere, about 340km west of Mogadishu.
"We know everything, they are going to try to take this town and all other districts in Gedo region, but we are ready to repel them and this time defeat will not be simple," he said.
Witnesses said heavily-armed Islamist fighters had left Sakkow, 80km to the south, but were being slowed by flooded roads, inundated with waters from the Juba River.
"Everybody is talking about war in Bardheere," local businesseprson Ahmed Omar Barako told AFP. "The Islamist fighters in Sakkow have started advancing and that is why people are worried."
Islamist officials said, however, they did not plan to attack JVA positions, mainly due to the catastrophic flooding.
At least eight people, three of them children, drowned early Wednesday when the river overflowed after torrential rains, sweeping through villages in Gedo's Garbaharey division and sending thousands fleeing their homes.
"There is no reason to engage fighting at a time when people have been killed by heavy rains in the region," said Islamic commander Sheikh Yaqub Issak. "But we will not tolerate trouble-makers."
Source: AFP, Nov 8, 2006