A Somali militia said Tuesday it had signed a deal with Somalia's weak government to retake by force a key southern port it lost to powerful Islamists last week, setting the stage for fresh unrest. | “This is not an invasion but a plan to retake Kismayo from the Islamic courts that took the area without any concern for the local people.” |
As the Islamists claimed to have taken more territory in southern Somalia, the government would neither confirm nor deny an agreement but said the people of the port town of Kismayo had a right to defend themselves.
"We have finalised a deal with the transitional government of Somalia to wage attacks on Kismayo," said Colonel Abdullahi Ismail Fartag, a spokesman for a faction of the Juba Valley Alliance (JVA) that once controlled the port. "This is not an invasion but a plan to retake Kismayo from the Islamic courts that took the area without any concern for the local people," he told AFP from the government seat of Baidoa where JVA leaders have gathered. |