MOGADISHU, Somalia: Heavy fighting broke out in central Somalia Sunday, officials said, a day after the transitional government rejected a peace initiative with the country's Islamic movement.
Islamic militia captured the town of Bandiradley after claiming they came under attack from pro-government militia backed by Ethiopian troops near the border of the semiautonomous region of Puntland, one of the few areas still outside their control.
"The fighting is continuing and we are pursuing Puntland troops," Mohamed Mahmud Agaweyne, spokesman for the Islamic group in central Somalia, told The Associated Press by telephone. Sa'id Abdirahman Dakaweyne, a colonel with the Puntland militia, also confirmed the fighting.
Neither side would comment on casualties or the sizes of forces involved. However Agaweyne said they had captured two tanks and 11 pickup trucks mounted with machine guns, known locally as "technicals."
Islamic forces said the tanks had Ethiopian markings and that militia loyal to secular warlord Abdi Awale Qaybdiid were backing the Puntland troops in fighting around the small town of Bandiradley, home mainly to around 2,0000 people and some 700 kilometers (430 miles) north of the capital, Mogadishu. Ethiopian officials were not immediately available for comment.
Sporadic skirmishes have broken out in central Somalia since May, when the Islamic movement took Jowhar, a large town and began extending north toward Puntland, which has close ties to Ethiopia and opposes the spread of the Islamic forces.
Fears are mounting that a war in Somalia could engulf the region.
Several peace initiatives have failed to take hold with both the transitional government and Islamic movement trading accusations over who is to blame for the deadlock.
A peace deal agreed on Friday by a powerful but renegade government lawmaker and the country's Islamic movement was rejected 24 hours later by the interim administration, which said it was done without their approval.
Experts also warn Somalia could become a proxy battleground for neighboring Ethiopia and Eritrea, which broke away from Ethiopia in a 1961-91 civil war and fought another 1998-2000 border war with its rival. Eritrea supports the Islamic militia, while Ethiopia backs the interim government.
A confidential U.N. report obtained recently by The Associated Press said 6,000-8,000 Ethiopian troops were in Somalia or along the border. It also said 2,000 soldiers from Eritrea were inside Somalia. Eritrea denies having any troops in Somalia, while Ethiopia insists it has sent only a few hundred advisers.
Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991, when warlords overthrew a dictator and then turned on one another. The government was formed with the help of the U.N. two years ago, but it has failed to assert any real control outside Baidoa. The Islamic courts, meanwhile, have been rising since June and now control most of the country's south.
Late last week, the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, warned that extremists in Somalia were planning suicide attacks in Kenya and Ethiopia.
The Islamic group's strict and often severe interpretation of Islam raises memories of Afghanistan's Taliban, which was ousted by a U.S.-led campaign for harboring Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida fighters.
The United States has accused Somalia's Islamic group of sheltering suspects in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Bin Laden has said Somalia is a battleground in his war on the West.
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Associated Press writer Salad Duhul and Mohamed Ali in Mogadishu also contributed to this report.
Herald Tribune
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