Somali victors win cheers, but for how long?

[Castro]

NAIROBI, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Six months ago, Somalis gave Islamists fighters a jubilant welcome as they chased warlords out of Mogadishu and across the south vowing to restore stability through strict sharia law.

 

Now many have come out of their homes again, this time to cheer the arrival of government troops and Ethiopian tanks who kicked out their short-lived rulers calling them terrorists.

 

So the government cannot take too much comfort from its welcome in a city where power seems to swap hands all too often and it has become safest to applaud that day's victory.

 

Nor can President Abdullahi Yusuf or Prime Minister Ali Gedi rest on their laurels for one second, despite the surprising speed with which the Islamists were routed from Mogadishu, then fled their last stronghold Kismayu overnight on Monday.

 

They remain, to many Somalis, a foreign-imposed government relying on Ethiopia's military muscle for their sudden rise to national pre-eminence.

 

They must also contend with the re-emergence of Somali warlords, who slunk into the background after their militias were thrashed by the Islamists earlier in the year.

 

And they may find the Islamists have a sting in their tail with an Iraq-style guerrilla war drawing in foreign jihadists eager to defeat "Christian invaders".

 

Somalia expert Matt Bryden said the government urgently needed to reach out to the ****** clan, which includes the Islamists' top commanders and felt excluded from the Western-backed process that forged the administration in 2004.

 

"The top priority is reconciliation, not pacification ... The issue now is to engage the ****** and cut a deal that brings credible ****** leadership into the government," Bryden said.

 

"If that is not done, the government risks seeing an insurgency beginning in ****** areas which would then create space for radical Islamists and jihadists."

 

The Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) returned a semblance of normality to much of one of the world's most chaotic countries, and it is now up to the administration to prove it can do the same.

 

COMING DAYS CRITICAL

 

The idea of re-constituting the government along broader lines has won tentative support from Washington and Addis Ababa. The United States has urged the government to engage all Somalia's political actors, including defeated SICC members who want to cooperate.

 

Whatever Yusuf and Gedi decide, they will have to act fast to dispel the impression among many of their countrymen that they are merely puppets with Addis Ababa pulling their strings.

 

That will be hard until their Ethiopian protectors withdraw, and triumphalist talk in recent days has not helped their case.

 

"After controlling just a few blocks of the country, their Big Brother across the border with one of Africa's biggest armies has swept in," said analyst John Prendergast.

 

"So crowing about their right to lead is deeply insulting to the Somali people and one of the biggest impediments to peace."

 

Another huge challenge will be to muzzle a host of venal warlords who tore the nation apart during 15 years of chaos -- and whose militia resumed their posts at Mogadishu checkpoints within hours of the Islamists fleeing the city on Thursday.

 

But the government may have to look to them for help, analysts say, stoking resentment among the war-weary population.

 

"The government will encounter such hostility in Mogadishu and elsewhere that it will have to turn to the warlords and give them Ethiopian arms to maintain control," Prendergast said.

 

A big fear is that the religious movement will now launch a campaign of guerrilla attacks that could range from hit-and-run assaults on Ethiopian and government troops inside Somalia to suicide bombs targeting civilians in east African capitals.

 

Washington says at least three of the plotters behind the 1998 truck bombings of its embassies in Tanzania and Kenya are in Somalia, and says the SICC is controlled by an al Qaeda cell.

 

But the rapid gains by the joint Ethiopian-Somali government force has brought a measure of international relief, and largely laid to rest fears the fighting could expand into a regional war sucking in Eritrea, accused of backing the SICC.

 

The government offered on Monday to pardon any Islamist fighters who laid down arms after abandoning Kismayu.

 

However, Bryden said the fall of Kismayu would not spell the end of the Islamists' most radical wing, the Shabab, which largely groups young militants. "The Shabab will probably go underground and across borders," he said.

 

Unless the government can muster truly national support and silence the guns, Somalis may not cheer them for long.

 

Reuters

[Castro]

Mission Accomplished: Somalia’s prime minister says major fighting likely over

 

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Somalia’s prime minister said Tuesday that rival Islamic fighters have been scattered and that he does not expect any more major fighting for control of the country.

Government forces, backed by Ethiopian troops, were pursuing the remnants of an Islamic militia that until two weeks ago controlled most of southern Somalia and threatened to drive out the internationally-backed government.

But Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said his rivals were scattered and that a group of them offered to surrender on Tuesday.

"We asked out troops to collect them and bring them back home," he said, refusing to provide any details about how many fighters were involved or where they were.

The rest of "Islamists are scattered in the bush," he said. "Maybe small fights can take place, but we are trying to destroy them."

Meanwhile, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told parliament Tuesday that Ethiopia may withdraw its troops in Somalia within weeks.

He told lawmakers said his troops were not peacekeepers and it would be too costly to keep them in Somalia, calling on the international community to act quickly to send in peacekeepers to avoid a vacuum when Ethiopian troops withdraw.

"We have accomplished our mission. After this our area of focus will be withdrawing of our defense forces and continuing the ongoing anti-poverty struggle (in Ethiopia)," Zenawi said.

"Of course when we do this it does not mean that we will abandon ... the Somali government and its people’s ongoing effort to stabilize peace in the country," the prime minister said. "We will stay in Somalia for a few weeks, maybe for two weeks."

Diplomats from the region were working to arrange the speedy deployment of African peacekeepers to help the interim government establish its authority in the country, which has known only anarchy for 15 years.

A three-day period also began Tuesday for Somalis to voluntarily surrender their arms to government-designated points. Ethiopian troops reported that at one such point in the capital, Mogadishu, no one had handed in any weapons in the morning.

As the last remaining stronghold of the Islamic group - the port of Kismayo - was overrun by government troops backed by Ethiopian tanks and MiG fighter jets, the net began closing on suspected al-Qaida fighters believed to be sheltered by the hard-line group.

Defense Minister Col. Barre "Hirale" Aden Shire, speaking in Kismayo Tuesday, said young men who fought with the Islamic militants are "pardoned" and could join Somalia’s national army.

"You have heard a lot of times that the transitional government is weak," Shire told thousands of Kismayo residents gathered at Freedom Park in the town’s center. "But I will confirm you that the national army are in control of all regions in the country - east, center and south."

Neighboring Kenya vowed to seal its frontier to prevent any extremists, now wedged between the sea and the border, from escaping following the 13-day military offensive.

Sea routes from southern Somalia were also being patrolled by the U.S. navy, hunting three al-Qaida suspects believed to be among the Islamic group and wanted for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa.

Anthony Kibuchi, the Kenyan provincial police commander on the border, said Monday that 10 foreigners were arrested Saturday when they tried to cross into Kenya.

"We are interrogating them and we will give more details about them as soon as possible," he said.

Kibuchi refused to provide further details, but local media reported the eight of the men said they were from Eritrea, while two said they were Canadian. According to a U.N. report, Eritrea sent 2,000 troops to support the Islamic movement, while there have been reports of Somalis with Canadian citizenship joining the Islamic militia.

The military advance was a stunning turnaround for Somalia’s government, which just weeks ago could barely control one town - its base of Baidoa - while the Council of Islamic Courts controlled the capital and much of southern Somalia.

But with the intervention of Ethiopia, which has one of Africa’s largest armies, the Islamic group has been forced from Mogadishu and other key towns in the past 10 days. Its casualties run into the thousands, Ethiopia said.

Diplomats want the international peacekeeping force to replace the muscle of Ethiopia, a largely Christian country long despised in Muslim Somalia. Both countries have fought two wars, the last in 1977, and Somalia lays claim to territories in Ethiopia.

Uganda said it has a battalion of 1,000 troops ready to deploy in a few days. Nigeria has also promised troops, Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said.

Somalia’s interim government and its Ethiopian allies have long accused Islamic militias of harboring al-Qaida, and the U.S. government has said the 1998 bombers have become leaders in the Islamic movement in Africa.

Islamic movement leaders deny having any links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network.

 

AP

[NGONGE]

So the Ethiopians are leaving within two weeks? Wouldn’t that confuse matters a little! I mean how could we go on about the government being Ethiopian puppets when there will be no Ethiopians to speak of in Somali soil?

 

Could we have wronged our rescuer, Meles Zenawi? Could it really be that all he was doing all along was for the benefit of Somalia?

 

Hmmmm!

[Castro]

Originally posted by NGONGE:

So the Ethiopians are leaving within two weeks? Wouldn’t that confuse matters a little! I mean how could we go on about the government being Ethiopian puppets when there will be no Ethiopians to speak of in Somali soil?

The Somali TFG is an Ethiopian puppet whether the Ethiopian army leaves in two weeks (bwahahahahaha) or not.

[Wisdom_Seeker]

Does anyone remember when Bush said mission accomplished. I believe that was almost a year and so ago. But Iraq is still in ruins and the mission was never accomplished.

 

Same for Gedi, the mission is not accomplished. Yes the ICU is gone, but this time you will have to deal with the ordinary people.

[Che -Guevara]