MOGADISHU – Ethiopian troops supporting Somalia’s Western-backed government have left their main bases in Mogadishu, according to witnesses, heralding an uncertain new chapter for the anarchic country.
Many residents were overjoyed by yesterday’s departure of soldiers whom they saw as occupiers, even though some analysts fear it will leave a power vacuum and trigger more violence by Islamist rebels who have been battling the government and each other.
Hundreds of people gathered at one military facility in the north of the city that was abandoned overnight.
Insurgents have been fighting the interim government and Ethiopian forces for two years, since Addis Ababa sent soldiers to help drive a Sharia courts group out of Mogadishu.
More than 16,000 civilians have been killed and one million have been forced from their homes. Frustrated by rifts in the Somali administration, however, and the cost of the operation, Ethiopia has decided to withdraw its estimated 3,000 troops.
The country, which Washington has long feared may become a militants’ haven, has been mired in civil conflict for 18 years. Some analysts believe the exit of Ethiopian troops could be positive, prompting the more moderate Islamist groups to join a process of forming a more broad, inclusive government.
However, there are few signs of a quick end to the bloodshed.
At least 11 civilians were killed in Mogadishu on Monday when artillery shells slammed into the city’s crowded Bakara market and nearby residential streets as the insurgents battled government forces and their Ethiopian allies.
There has also been fierce fighting between rival Islamist factions in the central trading town of Gurael. More than 50 people have been reported killed there in battles at the weekend between gunmen from the hardline al-Shabaab group and another Islamist group, Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca.
Aid workers said between 45,000 and 60,000 civilians had fled Gurael and the regional capital Dusamareb in recent days.
Some Islamist factions appear to be turning on al-Shabaab, which wants to impose a strict version of Sharia law shunned by traditionally moderate Somalis.
The United States has formally listed it as a terrorist organisation with links to al-Qaeda.
Somalia’s interim president Sheikh Aden Madobe said at the weekend that al-Shabaab posed the biggest threat to the country and that his government needed help. Sheikh Madobe, who was parliament speaker and became interim president when Abdullahi Yusuf quit last month, said Somalia needed money to build up its security forces. A new president is supposed to be elected by January 26th.
The African Union (AU) has also 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.
At United Nations in New York, the US has circulated a draft resolution calling for a UN peacekeeping force to be deployed in Somalia to replace a small African Union force, but leaving the Security Council to make a final decision by June 1st.
The draft resolution would renew the mandate of the AU force, known as Amisom, for six months and urge African nations to beef up its troop strength from the current 2,600 to the 8,000 originally authorised. – (Reuters)