News

14-01-2009

Somali palace attacked as troops quit

14/01/09 ITN - Around 3,000 Ethiopian soldiers have been withdrawn, leaving a power vacuum and triggering more violence by Islamist militants who have battling the UN-backed interim administration for two years.

Somalia has been mired in conflict for 18 years and fighting has killed more than 16,000 Somalian civilians since early 2007. More than 1 million people have been forced from their homes, triggering a humanitarian disaster amid drought and hyper-inflation.

The African Union (AU) has been desperately trying to strengthen a small peacekeeping mission of 3,500 troops from Uganda and Burundi. But despite pledges of extra battalions from those two nations and Nigeria, they have yet to deploy.

In Mogadishu, witnesses said security forces guarding the hill-top palace compound in the capital responded with their own volley of artillery shells, but there was no immediate word on casualties.

Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca, a government-allied Sunni Islamist group, spokesman said: "No Somali wants the Ethiopians to stay, but there will be chaos whether they withdraw or not."

Any plans to form a power-sharing government will be fought by groups like al-Shabaab - which the US says is linked to al-Qaeda - and militants backed by Somali exiles in Eritrea, Mr Waljamaca said.

Al-Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Hassan Yacqub said he doubts Ethiopia will withdraw completely from its neighbour, saying: "If they do pull out it will be due to Islamists' attacks, not requests nor negotiations. We shall continue fighting them until there is no single Ethiopian in Somalia."

A new president is supposed to be elected at UN-led talks in Djibouti by January 26.