By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 1, 2007
In the final stage of a dramatic power shift inside a fragile nation of great strategic importance to the United States, the Islamic fighters abandoned their heaviest weapons early Monday morning and took off for villages in the forest with Ethiopian and government troops in hot pursuit of key leaders, including three suspects in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
"Our forces have captured Kismaayo," Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi told reporters in Mogadishu, where Ethiopian forces essentially installed his secular, internationally recognized government just days ago. "The warlord era in Somalia is now over."
Gedi has given fighters loyal to the Islamic movement, which was organized under an umbrella group called the Council of Islamic Courts, three days to disarm, and promised amnesty for those who do. Government officials said that in Kismaayo, hundreds of fighters had turned over their weapons Monday and were returning to their clans.
With the most hard-core militiamen headed their way, Kenyan authorities on Monday tightened security along their 250-mile long border with Somalia. Kenya is heavily populated with Somali refugees who know the Islamic leaders, and analysts believe it would be easy for them to simply melt into the local population.
Kenyan and Somali government officials have said that if they capture the three embassy bombing suspects, they would hand them over to the U.S. government. But some analysts speculated that the Kenyan government, which has always pushed the Somali transitional government to include the Courts' more moderate Islamic leaders, may allow those leaders refuge in the country.
On Monday, Gedi called for the quick deployment to Somalia of a peacekeeping force from the African Union. This contingent would in theory replace the Ethiopian troops that are now girding the vulnerable new government, but also causing tensions among Somalis who consider them invaders.
Abdikarin Farah, the Somali ambassador to Ethiopia, said that a longstanding request for U.S. military assistance was also on the table.
"We are pursuing that request, and I won't be surprised if that comes to light," said Farah, speaking from Addis Ababa. "We have very close coordination and are in touch with the Americans, and obviously we will continue that kind of contact."
Although Ethiopian troops have been stoned by protesters in Mogadishu in recent days, Farah said that longstanding animosities between Ethiopia and Somalia are "history" now.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said that he will not withdraw troops until he has ferreted out certain Islamic leaders. Farah said that the government would not ask the Ethiopians to leave until the security situation in the country improves.
"The next step is the difficult one and the long one," he said. "To build the country, and to go forward."
Source: Washington Post, Jan 01, 2007