Mohamed Abdi Farah, Somalinet
A plane thought to be carrying military supply has landed at Mogadishu international airport on Wednesday – amid fears over possible clash between Islamic Courts and Ethiopian troops who entered into southwestern regions of Somalia to protect the weak transitional federal government.
The plane which said to be from Eritrea has landed at the airport around 8:00 am local time where the Islamic militiamen have been heavily guarding and surrounded the area of the airport rejecting all ordinary people to go in there and left for unknown destinations two hours later..
When this morning local journalists and I tried to witness the event, heavily armed Islamic militiamen had stopped us and we have been told to get back from the area, Islamic troops were scattered in every corner of the airport to block any one.
It was a military cargo plane branded with Somali flag on its tail and we could see trucks going under the airplane to unload it from far distance outside the airport, despite it was foggy and raining in the area, it was too dangerous to go more closer to airport.
Sheikh Yusuf Indha Adde, one of the Islamic Courts leaders held a news conference on Wednesday at Ramadan Hotel in north of Somalia capital Mogadishu declining to comment on what the airplane was carrying.
Sheikh Indha-Adde, whose expression was so tense, has threatened to arrest one of the reporters questioning him about the arrived plane’s cargo.
Some reports say the plane from Eritrea has delivered weapons to the Islamic Courts who took the control of Mogadishu and other key towns in southern Somalia from US backed warlords last month.
Meanwhile, the deputy information minister of the transitional federal government Salad Ali Jelle has held a press conference in the provincial town of Baidoa, accusing the Eritrean government of sending weapons to Islamic Courts in the capital.
“We are assuring that Eritrean military airplane carrying military shipment including explosive devices, mines, bombs sophisticated rifles and other weapons has landed at the Mogadishu airport and this is in violation of the UN arms embargo on Somalia ,” Salad Jele said “The government is strongly condemning Eritrea for interfering Somalia affairs,”
He said Eritrea had already sent troops in Mogadishu to support the Islamists with the fight against Somali’s government.
On July 13, the UN Security Council endorsed an easing of the 15-year-old UN arms embargo on Somalia to allow the possible deployment of foreign peacekeepers in a move aimed at bolstering the country's weak transitional federal government.
The Islamists, who controlled much of southern Somalia, including Mogadishu, and the government were at loggerheads over the deployment of Ethiopian troops to protect the fragile government.
Source: Somalinet
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