Mon May 15, 2006 12:04 PM BST
By Mohamed Ali Bile
MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Peace held in the Somali capital on Monday after the worst fighting in a decade killed around 150 people, but residents feared violence could erupt again as rival militias denied they had agreed a truce.
Eight days of heavy fighting, which sent hundreds of civilians fleeing from mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns, came to a halt on Sunday after clan elders demanded a truce, saying if either side broke it, they would support the other.
Most of the dead and wounded were civilians caught in artillery duels between gunmen for a self-styled anti-terror coalition backed by powerful local warlords, and militia allied to Mogadishu’s Islamic courts.
“We have not agreed anything with them (Islamic courts), they stopped shooting at us and that’s why there is calm now,” Hussein Gutale Rage, spokesman for the warlords’ alliance, told Reuters by telephone on Monday.
Siyad Mohamed, a militia leader linked to the Islamic courts, said his side had accepted the elders’ call to halt fighting but had not signed a truce.
“There is no deal that was signed between the Islamic courts and the alliance,” he said.
“Our officials asked us to stop fighting and said any Islamic courts’ militiaman who fails to heed the call will be held accountable for his actions.”
Analysts view the fighting in the failed Horn of Africa state as a proxy battle between Islamist militants and Washington, widely believed to be funding the warlords.
The Islamic courts say U.S. money is pouring into Mogadishu to fuel a drive against them, while the alliance says their opponents have links to al Qaeda.
The past week’s battles were the third and by far the fiercest the two sides have waged since February.
GOVERNMENT MEETS IN OLD WAREHOUSE
Mohamed said clan elders had put into place a neutral force in the rundown Siisii area, where the fighting had started.
“None of the combatants can start fighting now,” he said. “Dead bodies are being retrieved from the rubble.”
Both sides had massed fighters along major roads in and out of the capital and sent in reinforcements during the week.
Despite the lack of fighting on Monday, residents said they feared more violence.
“It’s calm now, but we can’t trust these people, they say one thing and do the opposite, many people fear fighting will erupt again,” resident Yassin Osman said.
Somalia’s interim government, the 14th attempt at restoring central rule since the 1991 ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, cannot move to Mogadishu because of insecurity there.
It is based in the southern city of Baidoa, meeting in a former grain warehouse.
President Abdullahi Yusuf and his administration on Saturday called for foreign intervention to stop the fighting, echoing a request he made for foreign peacekeepers to pacify the country shortly after taking office in late 2004.
Yusuf and Islamic leaders have accused Washington of backing the warlords, who have called themselves the “Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism” in what some say is a cynical ploy to get U.S. cash.
The United States — which considers Somalia a likely terrorist hideout — has never directly answered the allegations, but has made clear it will work with anyone it considers an ally in fighting terrorism.
Both the warlords and the businessmen backing the Islamists want control of lucrative ports, airfields and road checkpoints where militiamen collect tolls at gunpoint.
Residents say the Islamic courts, which have imposed order on parts of the anarchic city through traditional Islamic law, oppose any threat to their authority.
Source: Reuters, May 15, 2006
