Foreigners captured, wounded in Somalia – Ethiopia PM

Jan 9, 2007 (PARIS) — Nationals from Britain, Canada, Pakistan and Sudan were among those captured or wounded during the ouster of Somalia’s Islamist rulers, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said in an interview published on Tuesday.

“Many international terrorists” were killed in the fighting although the precise number of prisoners was not known, Zenawi told the Le Monde newspaper.

“Photographs have been taken and passports from different countries collected. The Kenyans are detaining Eritrean and Canadian passport holders,” Zenawi said.

“We have wounded people coming from Yemen, Pakistan, Sudan and the United Kingdom,” he added.

Zenawi denied Ethiopia had walked into an Iraq-style trap by intervening in Somalia and repeated a pledge that his troops would quit the neighbouring African state within weeks.

“I think Westerners have in mind the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan and are transposing it to Somalia, which is a very different country,” Zenawi told Le Monde.

“In reality, since we took control of Mogadishu there has been no significant violence,” he said. “We will withdraw as soon as possible, in the coming weeks. But we will do it responsibly, in a way that does not leave a security vacuum.”

Zenawi rejected suggestions Ethiopia would get bogged down in Somalia just as U.S. forces had done when they intervened in the early 1990s.

“I don’t think the risk exists because we do not have any project to remodel the country according to our own views. Our programme consists of supporting Somali solutions aimed at resolving Somali problems,” Zenawi said.

(Reuters)