Islamists seize new town in central Somalia
Nov 12, 2006 (MOGADISHU, Somalia) — Islamist gunmen on Sunday stormed a town in central Somalia, seizing it in fierce fighting from a warlord allied with the weak government, as the lawless nation slipped closer to all-out war.
A day after the government rejected a new peace initiative, the powerful Somali Islamist movement pushed to their furthest point north, taking the town of Bandiradley in central Mudug region, witnesses and militia commanders said Sunday.
Witnesses said at least 13 people were killed in the battle that is certain to exacerbate already sky-high tensions with the government and brings the Islamists to less than 100 kilometers of the semi-autonomous enclave of Puntland, which has vowed to resist their advance.
“We have taken control of Bandiradley after heavy fighting,” said Mohamed Mohamud Jama, the Islamist spokesman in Mudug, where the town, about 700 kilometers north of Mogadishu, is located.
He said that the Islamists would now march on Galkayo, a major Puntland town about 70 kilometers north.
Such a move would be a major escalation in the deterioriating situation in Somalia that diplomats and analysts fear could erupt into full-scale war and engulf the Horn of Africa region in bloody conflict.
Bandiradley residents said at least 13 fighters were killed in fighting for the town, five Islamists and eight loyal to ex-Mogadishu warlord Abdi Hassan Awale Qeybdiid.
They also said Qeybdiid lost seven machine gun-mounted pick-ups and two aging tanks in the battle, adding the Islamists lost three armored vehicles.
A commander for Qeybdiid’s militia admitted a retreat, but maintained it was tactical and not a defeat.
“They attacked our bases around Bandiradley airfield and we retreated a bit from the zone although we did not lose the fight,” said commander Said Dhegoweyne.
Qeybdiid, a former member of a now-defunct U.S.-backed warlord alliance ousted from Mogadishu by the Islamists in June, is supported by the interim government, Puntland’s regional administration and neighboring Ethiopia.
The Somali government said the fighting might to spread to other districts in central Somalia.
Residents said the captured tanks were given to Qeybdiid by authorities in Puntland but Jama maintained they were from Ethiopia, which the Islamists accuse of sending thousands of troops to Somalia.
“There were no Ethiopian troops. Our fighters tackled the Islamists and we will always defend ourselves,” said Ali Abdi Warre, a Puntland minister who chairs the security committee for Mudug region.
Addis Ababa maintains they sent only a few hundred military advisers.
Mainly Christian Ethiopia has vowed to defend itself and the transitional administration from attacks by the Islamists, some of whom are accused of links with international terrorism and al-Qaida.
The presence of their forces in Somalia is a major sticking point in urgent efforts to avert war that could draw in Ethiopia and its arch-foe neighbor Eritrea, which denies reports of having 2,000 troops there.
The Islamists have rapidly expanded their territory since taking Mogadishu and now control nearly all of southern and central Somalia. They are demanding the withdrawal of the Ethiopians to resume peace talks.
The last round of negotiations collapsed earlier this month in Sudan over that issue and Islamist demands for the removal as co-mediator of Kenya, which along with Ethiopia backs a government call for regional peacekeepers.
On Saturday, the government rejected an agreement to restart peace talks reached between the Islamists and influential speaker of the Somali parliament who travelled to Mogadishu last week in a last-ditch bid to prevent a war.
Somalia has been without a functioning central authority since the 1991 ousting of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and the two-year-old transitional government has been unable to assert control.
(AP)