MOGADISHU, July 21 (AFP) – Somalia’s powerful Islamist movement has vowed a fight to the death against Ethiopian troops who have moved into the town of Baidoa to protect the country’s weak government.
The Islamists, who have taken control over much of southern Somalia, demanded the immediate withdrawal of the Ethiopians after residents reported the arrival of more of Addis Ababa’s military vehicles overnight.
“What the Ethiopians have done is an act of violence that undermines the sovereignty of Somalia,” he said in a local radio broadcast. “The Somali people have to defend themselves and (we) are ready to spearhead that defense.”
“We will fight and die to defend Somalia from an Ethiopian military attack,” Ahmed said from Mogadishu, where the Islamists seized control from a US-backed alliance of warlords last month.
Ahmed said Ethiopia had refused to help the Somalis when the country was being ravaged by warlords, who divided the country into a patchwork of unruly fiefdoms.
“Ethiopia gave no military support to the people of Somalia when they needed them during the violence that was created by the warlords,” he said.
In Baidoa, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu, residents said at least nine more large Ethiopian military vehicles carrying supplies, but no troops, moved into the town early Friday.
“Nine big trucks arrived in Baidoa carrying logistics for the Ethiopian troops,” Baidoa resident Hassan Moalim Ahmed told AFP. “There were no soldiers in the lorries, but they had food and military items.”
These followed an initial convoy of more than 100 trucks with several hundred Ethiopian soldiers that witnesses said rolled into Baidoa and surrounding areas Thursday, after Islamist militia advanced on a nearby town.
The Islamists pulled back on Thursday but not before Somali prime minister Ali Mohamed Gedi accused them of plotting to attack Baidoa and the transitional government in violation of a truce and mutual recognition deal.
The Islamists have repeatedly denied they were planning or are planning to attack Baidoa, but their success in taking Mogadishu and asserting control elsewhere is a challenge to the largely powerless government headed by Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, himself a former warlord who ruled the northeastern region of Puntland.
Neighboring Ethiopia, which is dominantly Christian, along with some western countries fears the rise of a fundamentalist Islamic state in Somalia, which has been without a functioning central government for the past 16 years.
Ethiopia has said it will defend the transitional government from attack by the Islamists, whom it and the United States accuse of harboring extremists including Al-Qaeda members wanted for attacks in east Africa.
Despite numerous eyewitness accounts of uniformed Ethiopian soldiers in Baidoa, however, Somali government officials and Ethiopia continued to deny their presence in the town — or anywhere else in Somalia.
“This is absolute propaganda from the Islamists,” Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Mohamed Nur Dinari said. “There are no Ethiopian troops in Baidoa. Anybody with the evidence should come forward.”
A senior Somali government security source said “a few” Ethiopian troops were in Baidoa, although he insisted they were there to train Somali troops and were not an occupying or protective force.
“A few Ethiopian officers here to help the government train security forces have arrived,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
He insisted that the numbers were small and maintained the situation had been exaggerated.
“The media and Mogadishu-based Islamists have blown the matter out of proportion,” the security official said. “No Ethiopian troops are here to occupy Somalia.
“As a friendly neighboring country, they will assist the government to form its own forces,” he said.
The tension has kept prospects for peace talks between the government and Islamists uncertain, amid growing international worry about a potential resurgence of fighting.
On Thursday, UN chief Kofi Annan added his voice to the chorus of concern, calling for all parties involved “to refrain from actions that could further strain relations.”
The United States and European Union have voiced similar sentiments.
Somalia has been wracked by lawlessness since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, which plunged the nation of about 10 million people into anarchic bloodletting.
Source: AFP, July 21, 2006
