Ethiopia's final troop pullout from Somalia has started and will last several more days, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's spokesman said Friday. "We have already started to implement our withdrawal plan. It will take some more days. It is a process and it will take some time," Bereket Simon told AFP.Ethiopia invaded neighboring Somalia in 2006 to rescue an embattled transitional administration and oust the Islamic Courts Union, which had taken control of most of the country and started imposing a strict form of Sharia law.
Addis Ababa announced late last year that it would have fully withdrawn from Somalia in the first days of 2009. It had already significantly reduced its troop presence but the exact timetable for the final pullout remains unclear. Ethiopian forces were still operating in Mogadishu Friday. Two soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb explosion in the capital, prompting retaliatory fire that left seven civilians dead, according to witnesses.