By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN,
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
A U.N. official, meanwhile, said Tuesday that Ethiopian-backed government troops were advancing on Mogadishu, the capital, from two directions and facing stiff resistance.
As many as 1,000 people may have been killed and 3,000 wounded in the fighting, many of them foreign radicals, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said.
"As soon as we have accomplished our mission — and about half of our mission is done, and the rest shouldn‘t take long — we‘ll be out," Meles told reporters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
The council took no immediate action on a draft presidential statement circulated by Qatar calling for a cease-fire and withdrawal of foreign forces, specifying Ethiopian troops. The United States and several other nations objected to singling out Ethiopia and the call for a truce, saying talks and a political agreement are needed for stability before foreign forces can leave. The council agreed to continue discussions Wednesday.
The spokesman, Gonzalo Gallegos, said he had no information on whether the U.S., which is concerned about the militia‘s ties to foreign Islamic militants, was aiding the Ethiopian military with supplies.
Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a top leader of the Islamic group, accused Ethiopian troops of massacring 50 civilians in the central town of Cadado. Ethiopian officials were not immediately available to respond.
"The war is entering a new phase," Ahmed said from Mogadishu, the capital. "We will fight Ethiopia for a long, long time and we expect the war to go everyplace."
Ismael Mohamoud Hurreh, Somalia‘s foreign minister, said Tuesday that the government‘s small military force has been training for this offensive for five months.
Experts fear the conflict in Somalia could engulf the region. Islamic courts leaders have repeatedly said they want to incorporate ethnic Somalis living in eastern Ethiopia, northeastern Kenya and Djibouti into a Greater Somalia.
For months, foreign Islamic radicals — including Pakistanis, Arabs and Chechens — have been trickling into Somalia to fight on behalf of the Islamic movement. According to a U.N. report in October, Eritrea — Ethiopia‘s neighbor and longtime adversary — has dispatched 2,000 soldiers to Somalia to fight against the Ethiopian-backed central government.
Ethiopia‘s Meles said his goal is not to defeat the militias but severely damage their military power — and allow both sides to return to peace talks on an even footing.
"The rank and file of the Islamic Courts militia is not a threat to Ethiopia," he said Tuesday. "Once they return to their bases, we will leave them alone."
Ethiopian troops will not enter Mogadishu, he said. Instead, he said, Somali forces would encircle the city to contain the militias that control it.
Any effort by the Somali government or Ethiopia to take the capital risks a disaster similar to the U.S. intervention in Somalia in 1992.
That U.N.-sponsored mission ended in 1993, after Somali militiamen shot down a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter. Eighteen American servicemen were killed in the crash and vicious street fighting that preceded and followed, made famous in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down."
Somalia has not had an effective government since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, pushing the country into anarchy.
Two years ago, the United Nations helped set up a central government for the arid, impoverished nation on the Horn of Africa. But until the past week, it had little influence outside of its seat in the city of Baidoa, about 140 northwest of Mogadishu.
The country was largely under the control of warlords until this past summer, when the Islamic militia movement pushed them aside.
One critical issue is whether the central government can win the support of Somalis. Many resent Ethiopia‘s intervention because the countries have fought two wars over their disputed border in the past 45 years.
Hurreh, the Somali foreign minister, said Somalis will embrace the fall of the Islamic militias. Their severe interpretation of Islam is reminiscent, to some, of Afghanistan ‘s Taliban regime — ousted by a U.S.-led campaign in 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden .
"A lot of people in Mogadishu will be very happy to chew some qat and have the Islamic courts out of their way," Hurreh said, referring to the narcotic leaf banned by many of the Islamic courts.
____
AP writers Salad Duhul in Mogadishu, Les Neuhaus in Addis Ababa, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, and Chris Tomlinson and Elizabeth A. Kennedy in Nairobi contributed to this report.
Source: AP, Dec 27, 2006