Rapidly advancing militias of Somali Islamic Courts have taken
over a strategic southern port city of Kismayo, an official of the
militias confirmed on Monday.
Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, head of the Courts' executive council, said
that he had his militia, which seized Mogadishu and other parts of
southern Somalia earlier this year, both inside and around
Kismayo.
Officials with the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC) in
Mogadishu had denied planning to take Kismayo by force but said
they wanted the port to keep the planned peacekeeping force from
landing there. They also said they would expand further to close
the Kenyan-Somali border to prevent regional countries from
deploying foreign peacekeepers in the nation.
Earlier this month, the African Union supported a request by
Somalia's transitional government, which controls only a small part
of the country, to send in a regional peacekeeping force.
Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said on Monday that any
attack on Kismayo would breach a ceasefire deal between the
administration and the Islamic Courts during the recent talks in
the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. "We are requesting that the
international community pressurize the Islamic Courts to stop
attacking," said Dinari.
The SCIC has steadily increased its hold on Somalia since its
fighters took control of the capital, Mogadishu, in June.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR said last week that hundreds of
people have fled Kismayo for neighboring Kenya over the past week.
The agency has already received over 25,000 Somali refugees since
early this year.
The Horn of African nation has not had an effective national
government since 1991. An interim government was formed in 2004
with UN help in hopes of restoring order after years of
lawlessness.
(Xinhua News Agency September 26, 2006)
