Ethiopia must leave, or 'face all out war'

Sapa-AFP
August 25 2006
Mogadishu - Islamists controlling much of southern Somalia warned Ethiopia on Thursday of "full-scale war" unless it withdraws troops allegedly sent to defend the country's weak transitional government.The warning was delivered as forces loyal to the increasingly powerful Islamist movement advanced toward a town north of the capital lost earlier this week to warlords reportedly backed by Ethiopian soldiers."We say again that Ethiopian intervention in Somalia will never be accepted," said Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the hardline leader of the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia."We call on Ethiopia to withdraw its forces from Somalia, otherwise be ready for full-scale war," he said at a ceremony in Mogadishu to mark the formal opening of the city's main seaport that was closed 11 years ago.

'They made it clear that they want to establish Islamic courts'"No one can dare divert us onto a path other than Sharia law," added Aweys, a conservative cleric designated a terrorist by the United States for alleged links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.Ethiopia has repeatedly denied deploying troops to Somalia despite numerous eyewitness accounts of uniformed Ethiopian forces arriving in the country since last month to protect the government from feared Islamist attacks.Addis Ababa has rejected the persistent claims as propaganda, but is deeply concerned about the rise of the Islamists on its western border and has pledged to defend itself and the Somali administration from any Islamist threat.The most recent report came on Tuesday when Ethiopian soldiers helped secular militia chase Islamic fighters from the village of Bandiiradley, near the town of Galkayo, about 620km north of Mogadishu.As Aweys spoke in the capital, several hundred heavily armed Muslim gunmen rolled into and occupied the town of Duol, about 40km south of Galkayo and were girding themselves for battle, residents said."Some 700 Islamic fighters armed with machine guns and battlewagons came in, but there was little resistance," said Duol resident Abdulaziz Ahmed Guled. "They made it clear that they want to establish Islamic courts."He and others said they feared the Islamists were preparing to fight the warlords in Bandiiradley and expand their territory further north into Galkayo and the semi-autonomous north-eastern region of Puntland.Meanwhile, Galkayo residents said forces loyal to ex-Mogadishu warlords, who were driven out of the capital in June by the Islamists after months of fierce fighting, were getting set to meet the Islamist advance at Duol.