Somalia’s Islamists are in full retreat after Ethiopian airstrikes and a ground offensive that have killed up to 1,000 of the religious movement’s fighters, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Tuesday. “A joint Somali government and Ethiopian force has broken the back of the international terrorist forces... These forces are in full retreat,” Meles told reporters in Addis Ababa, adding that up to 1,000 Islamist fighters had been killed. “A few are Somali but the majority are foreigners,” he said of the dead. Addis Ababa has vowed to protect Somalia’s weak interim government from rival Islamists based in Mogadishu. A week of artillery and mortar duels between the two sides has spiralled into open war that both sides say has killed hundreds. Meles said most fighters of the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) had fled to their home areas. He said Ethiopian forces were now hunting down troops from his arch-foe Eritrea, which he accuses of supporting the Islamists. “The Ethiopian Air Force (will) further intensify pounding selected targets” in its lawless neighbour, the Information Ministry said in a statement, adding that it had “inflicted heavy damages on institutions” controlled by Islamists. “The only forces we are pursuing are Eritreans who are hiding behind the skirts of Somali women, and terrorist mujahideen,” Meles said.
Ethiopia says the SICC has recruited foreign jihadists, and that a handful of almost 300 prisoners taken after one battle for a central Somali town held British passports. Meles said he had sent between 3,000 and 4,000 Ethiopian troops into Somalia, but denied they were occupiers. He said it was a small force, but carried a lot of firepower. “Our military is skirting the towns and attacking only military bases,” he said. “We have already completed half our mission, and as soon as we finish the second half, our troops will leave Somalia.”
| Who wants to bet that the imported jihadis had no clue what was coming their way? They thought they were coming to town to re-establish sharia, beat the loose women, terrorize the beardless men and in general have a good time. Instead they were fed into the Ethiop killing machine. Armor. Artillery. Aircraft. Combined operations. And even if the Ethiops aren't all that good at combined ops by western standards, they're about the best around in Africa. And they've had practice over the years. So when the balloon went up and the Ethiops came swarming over the crest of the hill there had to be a lot of jihadis saying, "curly-toed slippers don't fail me now!" |
Somalia’s internationally backed government called on the SICC to surrender and promised them amnesty if they lay down their weapons and stop opposing the government, spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said from Baidoa, the seat of the government. Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, leader of the Council of Islamic Courts’ executive body, said the group had asked its troops to withdraw from some areas. “The war is entering a new phase,” he said. “We will fight Ethiopia for a long, long time and we expect the war to go everyplace.”
On Monday, fighting raged for a seventh day near Daynunay, close to the town of Baidoa. Witnesses reported truck-loads of Ethiopian wounded being evacuated, and Islamist soldiers were said to be reciting the holy Quran as they went into battle. A MiG fighter struck MogadishuÂ’s international airport with machinegun fire soon after dawn, airport managing director Abdirahim Adan said.