Standoff in Somalia as warlords resist Islamist seizure of capital

MOGADISHU
by Ali Musa Abdi
Hundreds of heavily armed Islamic gunmen and fighters loyal to a US-backed warlord alliance faced each other down in a tense standoff north of Mogadishu on Tuesday as the capital split along clan lines.

A day after the Islamists claimed control of the lawless city in four months of bloody fighting, their forces were camped outside the warlords' last stronghold of Jowhar while alliance members still in Mogadishu vowed to resist.

Witnesses and elders said that about 500 Muslim militiamen backed by more than 100 machine-gun mounted pickups were about 10 kilometers (six miles) south of Jowhar in Kalinow village awaiting orders to attack the town.

A short distance away at the Kongo military base, an equal number of gunmen loyal to Mohamad Dheere - the warlord who controls Jowhar, some 90 kilometers north of Mogadishu - readied for a potential onslaught, they said.

"The two groups are about three kilometers apart," said one elder, stressing that both sides were under heavy pressure not to attack. "The alliance is ready to defend Jowhar but it is unlikely they will fight soon."

Jowhar is the most significant remaining position held by the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), but holdout warlords in the capital refused to accept the fall of Mogadishu.

Although there was no fighting, traditional clan elders in northern Mogadishu voiced support for the warlord alliance and warned militias affiliated with the city's 11 Islamic courts to steer clear of their territory.

Resistance was being led by the Abgal sub-clan, a faction of the larger Hawiye tribe to which most people living in Mogadishu belong, which controls the northern part of the city.

Hussein Sheikh Ahmed, an influential Abgal elder, said that the clan would not accept the imposition of courts' strict interpretation of Sharia law and demanded that the Islamists drop any plans to move into the area.

About 1,500 people gathered in a stadium in Abgal territory to protest against the Islamists, chanting, "We will defend northern Mogadishu from any attack" and "We want our own Islamic courts," witnesses said.

At the rally, warlords Musa Sudi Yalahow and Bashir Raghe Shirar, two of the three holdouts, insisted that the ARPCT was alive and well despite its apparent military defeat at the hands of the Islamists.

"We shall never support the courts in Mogadishu and we demand a complete withdrawal of Islamic militia from our territory," Yalahow said.

"We shall defend the Abgal clan," Shirar told the cheering crowd. "The fighting will continue if the Islamic courts refuse to withdraw from our territory. We shall defend every inch of our land."

Earlier, Shirar said that he was "still a member of the ARPCT, the alliance still exists and there are no plans to disband it" and repeated charges that the Islamists are harboring extremists, including Al Qaeda members.

"The ARPCT will continue to pursue its mandate," he said.

The alliance was created in February with US support in a bid to curb the growing influence the Islamic courts, hunt down the extremists that they are accused of harboring and disrupt possible plans for terrorist attacks.

Immediately after its formation, the ARPCT began battling the Islamists, which declared a holy war against the warlords.

At least 347 people were killed and more than 1,500 wounded in four months of clashes that followed.

Washington has never publicly confirmed or denied its support for the alliance but US officials said that they had given the warlords money and intelligence help to rein in "creeping Talibanization" in Somalia.

The Horn of Africa nation was plunged into anarchy with the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and analysts have long warned that it could become a hotbed for radical Islam along the lines of Afghanistan.

On Monday, the United States, whose last direct military intervention in Somalia ended disastrously in 1993, renewed its concern about extremists in Somalia while continuing to decline comment on its backing for the warlords.

The courts have repeatedly denied any links to extremists or Al Qaeda but have denounced the alliance and its US patrons that they term the "enemy of Islam."