Godspeed To Them…..
What the “West” can not/will not yet do:
Somalia’s Islamist fighters abandoned their last urban stronghold yesterday as their war with Ethiopian and government forces neared its endgame. Thousands of militiamen left the southern port city of Kismayo, moving into the bush near the Kenyan border as the pro-government alliance closed in.
Having already abandoned their base in the capital, Mogadishu, the Islamists’ only option appears to be the guerrilla war they have long threatened. “Do not think that the Islamic Courts have abandoned the country,” Sheikh Yaqub Ishak, an Islamist commander, told the news agency Agence France Presse. “We have left the cities, but we remain in action and our enemies will face an insurgency.”
The latest retreat caps a remarkable two weeks, during which the Islamists – known as the Somalia Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC) – have gone from being the strongest political movement in the country, controlling most of its south and centre, to one clinging to survival. Their downfall came when they surrounded the base of Somalia’s transitional government in Baidoa on December 20, provoking Ethiopian intervention. Since then they have been forced towards the Indian Ocean by the military might of Ethiopia, a vastly superior force backed by tanks and MiG fighter jets. Ethiopia accuses the SCIC of terrorist links and has taken the side of the weak Somali government.
Subscribe to blog feed.