Battle for Mogadishu not over, says Somalia warlord
June 11, 2006 (MOGADISHU) — A member of a secular alliance of warlords driven out of Somalia’s capital said Sunday the battle for Mogadishu is not over – a dire threat in a city that was wracked by weeks of fighting before Islamic militants declared victory.
Muse Sudi Yalahow said the alliance is regrouping and accused the Islamic militia of having ties to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization. The U.S. and other world powers have long been concerned that terror groups could be operating in this Horn of Africa nation.
“The alliance will continue fighting until we win the war on terror. We will hand down the terrorists linked to al-Qaida,” Yalahow said in a telephone interview.
“We will never surrender our arms,” he added.
The state of the alliance, and how many weapons they have, after the recent battles is not clear. Many alliance members are in hiding after weeks of fighting killed at least 330 people. And alliance leader Mohamed Dheere was believed to be in Ethiopia seeking reinforcements.
Mogadishu, home to an estimated 1.2 million people, has degenerated into a huge, looted shanty town since the last effective central government collapsed in 1991.
The U.N. helped set up an interim government during talks two years ago, but the government — based in Baidoa, 155 miles from Mogadishu — has been unable to enter the capital because of the violence, and has failed to assert control.
The U.S. was supporting the secular alliance in an attempt to root out terrorists who might be linked to the Islamic Courts Union. But that plan backfired, with the alliance retreating out of most of southern Somalia in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, in a sign that the Islamic Courts Union now in control of the city could enforce strict Islamic rule, its militiamen fired guns in the air and cut electricity to cinemas to prevent Somalis from watching the World Cup on Saturday. A strict interpretation of Islamic law often bans Western films and television as immoral.
Two people were wounded as the militia broke up the viewing parties. The vice chairman of the Islamic Courts Union, Shiekh Abdukadir Ali Omar, said it was a way to prevent “corrupting the children in this Muslim community.”
The episode left some residents wondering if the semblance of security that’s returned to the city under courts union will come with a price.
“As soon as the Islamists took over the security of our city, we thought we would get freedom,” said Adam Hashi-Ali, a teenager in Mogadishu. “But now they have been preventing us from watching the World Cup.”
Most Somalis practice a relatively tolerant brand of Islam.
The Islamic Courts Union, itself a fragile alliance of radical and moderate Muslim groups from different clans, has kept quiet about its plans as its power has increased – a tacit acknowledgment, perhaps, that there’s little desire for a fundamentalist theocracy here.
On Saturday, the Islamic militia’s leader said he does not want to impose a Taliban-style government and said “we will accept the views of the Somali people.”
The group now has control of nearly all of southern Somalia.
(ST/AP)