Somalia’s PM: Major Fighting Likely Over

By MOHAMED SHEIKH NOR

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Somalia’s prime minister said Tuesday that rival Islamic fighters have been scattered and he does not expect any more major fighting. His Ethiopian backer said he would withdraw his troops within weeks.

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.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said some of the militiamen offered to surrender Tuesday.

"We asked our 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.

Meanwhile, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told parliament that his troops were not peacekeepers and it would be too costly to keep them in Somalia for much longer, calling on the international community to quickly send in troops to avoid a vacuum.

Withdrawing will not mean abandoning "the Somali government and its people’s ongoing effort to stabilize peace in the country," Zenawi said. "We will stay in Somalia for a few weeks, maybe for two weeks."

Ethiopia’s intervention in late December brought a stunning turnaround for Somalia’s government. Just weeks ago the government could barely control one town – its base of Baidoa – while the Council of Islamic Courts was solidifying its power in the capital and other key towns.

The Islamic movement’s casualties run into the thousands, Ethiopia said.

However, many in Somalia remain wary of Ethiopia’s presence in the war. The largely Christian Ethiopia has fought two wars with mostly Muslim Somalia, the last in 1977.

Diplomats from the region were working to arrange the speedy deployment of African peacekeepers to help the interim government establish its authority in Somalia, which has known only anarchy for 15 years. Uganda said it has 1,000 peacekeepers ready to deploy in a few days. Nigeria has also promised troops, Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said.

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, attention turned to suspected al-Qaida fighters believed to be sheltered by the hard-line group, including three suspects wanted by the United States in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa.

Somalia’s interim government and its Ethiopian allies have long accused Islamic militias of harboring al-Qaida figures, and foreign Islamic fighters – including Pakistanis, Arabs and Chechens – are believed to have come to Somalia to fight on behalf of the Islamic movement in recent months.

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri have said they see Somalia as a battleground in their global war on the West.

Islamic movement leaders deny having any links to al-Qaida.

Sea routes from southern Somalia were being patrolled by the U.S. Navy to avoid Islamic fighters from fleeing by sea. Neighboring Kenya, which supports the Somali government, deployed troops, armored vehicles and trucks with light weapons along its 400-mile border with Somalia following reports that fighters were on the frontier, officials said Tuesday.

"Kenya cannot be a haven for people who are not wanted by their lawful government," Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua said in a statement on Monday.

Anthony Kibuchi, the Kenyan provincial police commander on the border, said 10 foreigners were arrested Saturday when they tried to cross into Kenya. Kibuchi refused to say whether they were suspected of fighting alongside Somalia’s Islamic movement.

Defense Minister Col. Barre "Hirale" Aden Shire, said in Kismayo that 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 (to) you that the national army are in control of all regions in the country – east, center and south."

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

At one of the points in Mogadishu where people have been asked to deposit arms, student Muhdin Sharif, 25, said he won’t give up his weapons until the Ethiopians leave Somalia. He said if Somalia has a government he can rely on, he would happily surrender his weapons.

Abdirahman Mudey, a spokesman of the Council of Islamic Courts, insisted that any power the government wielded was thanks to its Ethiopian backers. He predicted a return of the chaotic and violent warlord era that Mogadishu knew before his Islamic movement’s brief rule.

"Somalia is under the occupation of the Ethiopians," Mudey told The Associated Press by phone, declining to give his whereabouts.

Gedi said the airport and seaport in Mogadishu would reopen Wednesday to humanitarian agencies and that private operators could request clearance from the government to use them, as well.

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Associated Press writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Mohamed Olad Hassan, Salad Duhul and Les Neuhaus in Mogadishu; Nasteex Dahir Farah in Kismayo; and David Ochomi in Garissa, Kenya, contributed to this report.