MOGADISHU, July 19 (Reuters) – Somali Islamist militiamen riding in battlewagons advanced some 60 kms (37 miles) from Baidoa on Wednesday, the closest they have come to the seat of the interim government since capturing Mogadishu last month.
The move may inflame already high tensions between the Islamists and government, which many Somalis fear could boil over into an all-out fight for supremacy of the Horn of Africa country of 10 million.
“It’s true that 150 government forces have joined the Islamic courts. I am with them and I’m bringing them to Mogadishu,” Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, a senior Islamic official in charge of defence, told Reuters.
Residents in Buur Hakaba town said the militiamen arrived in a convoy of more than 20 technicals — heavily armed pickup trucks that are Somalia’s version of tanks.
Minister of air and land transport Ibrahim Adan Hassan told Reuters: “We are also hearing that the Islamic courts militia have reached as far as Buur Hakaba. We still don’t know why they are there.”
The move came two days after the Islamists opened a sharia court in the government-controlled Bay and Bakol area, where Baidoa is located. It was the first time they set up a court in an area they do not yet control since ousting U.S.-backed warlords from Mogadishu on June 5.
Source: Reuters, July 19, 2006
