Somalia's Islamic militia seizes village

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN

BAIDOA, September 30, 2006. Somalia -- Somalia's Islamic fighters have seized control of a strategic village near the Ethiopian border, widening their grip over much of the southern part of the country, the group said Saturday.

Fighters loyal to the radical Union of Islamic Courts group routed a pro-government militia in the village of Jawill, some 10 miles from the Ethiopian border. The only roads between Ethiopia and central Somalia pass through the village.

"The militiamen who controlled this village had a good relationship with Ethiopia so we decided they were an obstacle to our control in the region," said Hassan Abdirahman, whose fighters carried out the attack.

Ethiopia has been accused of deploying troops to support the virtually powerless Somali government, which only holds the town of Baidoa, about 150 miles from the capital Mogadishu. Analysts fear a regional conflict if Islamic militias and Ethiopian forces clash.

Ethiopia has denied having troops in Somalia.

Local resident Abdi Risaq told The Associated Press by telephone that three pro-government militiamen and one Islamic courts fighter were killed during Friday's gunbattle for the village.

The militia loyal to the government fled across the Ethiopian border, witnesses said.

The group further cemented its authority over southern Somalia when an ally handed over control of the fertile lower Shabelle region on Saturday. The national security chairman for the Islamic courts had governed the region just south of the capital since 2003.

Elsewhere, authorities in the semiautonomous region of Puntland in northern Somalia said Saturday they were banning all flights from areas under the control of the Islamists in the south. There are currently three flights a week from Mogadishu to Puntland.

The ban was imposed because radical clerics were flying to the region to try to recruit members for the Islamic courts, according to the deputy police commander Abdiaziz Saed Ga'amey.

He claimed authorities had intercepted a letter from hardline cleric Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, whom the U.S. has linked to al-Qaida, urging Somali clerics to recruit fighters by offering salaries of $100 per month and then install an Islamic Court in Puntland.

On Friday, the U.S. State Department said it was worried by a surge of Muslim fundamentalism in Somalia. "Some of their behavior is a source of concern," spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Kenya has also put its troops on high alert because of the deteriorating security situation in neighboring Somalia.

Somalia has not had an effective national government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another, pushing the country into anarchy.

The interim government was formed in 2004 with U.N. help in hopes of restoring order after years of lawlessness. But it has struggled to assert authority.

Clerics and militiamen set up the Union of Islamic Courts in a bid to restore order by enforcing Islamic law. Since sweeping over much of southern Somalia, including the capital, in June, the Islamists have brought a semblance of order after years of anarchy.

The group's strict interpretation of Islam, however, raises memories of Afghanistan's Taliban, which was ousted by a U.S.-led campaign for harboring Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida fighters.

Washington has accused Somalia's Islamic group of sheltering suspects in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Bin Laden has said Somalia is a battleground in his war on the West.

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS