Last Somali Islamist base 'falls'

[Castro]

Somali government troops backed by Ethiopian soldiers have captured the last stronghold of the Union of Islamic Courts, the defence minister says.

 

Col Barre Aden Shire said the town of Ras Kamboni, in south-eastern Somalia, fell after several days of fighting.

 

Remnants of the militia are now reported to be hiding in dense forest along Somalia's border with Kenya.

 

Ethiopia has led a military campaign against the Islamists, who controlled much of Somalia for six months.

 

The US this week launched air strikes against Islamists, who they accuse of harbouring al-Qaeda members suspected of carrying out attacks against US embassies in East Africa.

 

The Islamists denied they were sheltering senior al-Qaeda operatives.

 

The US air strikes have been condemned by some regional powers, including Djibouti and Eritrea, and have been criticised by Oxfam for leading to apparently high numbers of civilian deaths.

 

New realities

 

"Government troops and Ethiopian forces have captured Ras Kamboni after heavy fighting," the defence minister told the Associated Press news agency.

 

As news emerged of the fall of Ras Kamboni, interim President Abdullahi Yusuf met warlords in Mogadishu in an effort to agree a pact.

 

Earlier, warlords who battled for control of Somalia for 16 years agreed to surrender their weapons after a clan gunfight left at least five people dead.

 

"The warlords and the government have agreed to collaborate for the restoration of peace in Somalia," said government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari following the talks in Somalia's presidential palace.

 

"The agreement means they have to disarm their militia and their men have to join the national army," he said.

 

He named the warlords who had agreed to disarm as:

 

* Mohamed Qanyare Afrah

* Musa Sudi Yalahwo

* Omar Mohamed Mohamoud

* Issa Batan Alin

* Abdi Hassan Awale Qeiybdid

* Omar Habeb

* Bashir Raghe Shirar.

 

They formed a US-backed alliance last year but were driven out of Mogadishu by the militants of the Union of Islamic Courts.

 

Aid workers report that more 1,000 people have been wounded since fighting erupted in December.

 

BBC

[Wisdom_Seeker]

It took Ethiopia and America to defeat them. They have put up a good fight, May those who died rest in peace.

[Castro]

^ Aamiin. They did put up a good fight. May Allah forgive their sins and grant them Jannah.

[Centurion]

May allah show mercy to all those who fought for our nation, and to all muslims.

 

No word of the senior UIC members and their demise...

[Castro]

They're in hiding or have been captured or killed.

[Centurion]

Well, i guessed as much..

 

 

But we don't have any specific info regarding whats happened to whom.

[Faarax-Brawn]

May they rest in Peace. The Somali Nation will remember you as Heros....

[N.O.R.F]

Amiin

[Haaraahur.]

I dedicate this beautiful poem to the Islamic Courts of Soomaliiya.

May The Most Merciful Reward your good deeds generously and Forgive your sins.

Aamiin.

 

"The whole history of progress of human liberty

Shows that all concessions

Yet made to her august claims

Have been born of earnest struggle.

If there is no struggle

There is no progress.

 

Those who profess to favor freedom,

And yet deprecate agitation,

Are men [and women] who want crops

Without plowing up the ground,

They want rain

Without thunder and lightning.

They want the ocean

Without the awful roar of its waters.

 

This struggle may be a moral one;

Or it may be a physical one;

Or it may be both moral and physical;

But it must be a struggle.

 

Power concedes nothing without a demand.

It never did, and it never will.

 

Find out just what any people

Will quietly submit to

And you have found the exact measure

Of injustice and wrong

Which will be imposed upon them,

And these will continue till they are resisted. . .

 

The limits. . . are prescribed

By the endurance

Of those whom. . [are] oppress[ed].

 

Men [and Women] may not get all they pay for

in this world, but they pay for all they get.

If we ever get free

from the oppressions and wrong heaped on us,

we must pay for their removal.

We must do this

by labor,

by suffering,

by sacrifice,

and if needs be

by our lives and the lives of others"

 

No Struggle, No Progress

Frederick Douglass, 1857

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

how foolish you some of you are. May they rest in peace, you don't even know if they have been killed or not. I for one hope for the first. Actually, i think they should be given life sentence in some remote prison on some island near the coast. May god help the government hunt down the rest of the terrorist and dowladiids!

Amiin, Amiin.

[Haaraahur.]

^

You want those who do good for Somaaliya to be destroyed and those who pray for the destruction of Somalis to be glorified!

What a twisted logic! Moreover, you have the audacity to have the picture of the Sayid in your signature!!

 

Wax caqliga yeeli karo ma ahaan nin yahow.

[Ebyan]

May Allah have mercy on the souls of those who died (on both sides) of this senseless war.

[Fanisha]

^Both sides?? :confused:

[Ebyan]

Why the confused look my dear? Did I say something wrong?

[Dhubad.]

^There is only one good side Hizbu-Allah and Hizbu-Alshaidan

 

Might Allah mercy on the Mujaahidin who sacrificed their life for the sake of Allah and the dignity of our country.