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Last Updated: Jan 4th, 2007 - 09:52:13 |
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Remnants of Somalia's Islamic movement still pose a threat in the capital, the interior minister said Thursday, a week after his government and
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| Transitional Federal Government police officers guard a government building in Mogadishu, Somalia on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2007. European members of the International Contact Group for Somalia were holding talks Wednesday on how the European Union and others can bring an end to fighting in the African country and bolster Somalia's pro-Western interim government. (AP Photo/Mohamed Sheikh Nor) |
Ethiopian troops chased most of the militiamen from Mogadishu.
"There are 3,500 Islamists hiding in Mogadishu and the surrounding areas and they are likely to destabilize the security of the city," Interior Minister Hussein Aideed said at a news conference.
Aideed did not explain the source of his information or what prompted his comments after Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said on Tuesday that major fighting had ended and that he expected only minor violence ahead.
At a separate news conference Thursday, Gedi played down the threat and disputed Aideed's figure of Islamists hiding in the capital but did not offer his own estimate.
Gedi said his government would begin efforts to disarm Somalis by seizing large arms caches located around Mogadishu. A house-by-house will follow, the prime minister told journalists, without saying when that will happen.
Thursday was the deadline for people in Mogadishu to surrender their arms. Gedi said the disarmament program was progressing but offered no details.
Over the past 10 days, Somali government troops and Ethiopian forces have routed the Council of Islamic Courts, which had controlled most of southern Somalia. The Islamic movement has vowed to keep fighting, raising the specter of an Iraq-style guerrilla war.
Meanwhile, the top U.S. diplomat to Africa held consultations with African leaders in Ethiopia on how to help Somalia's struggling government establish itself.
"The people of Somalia need to come together," said Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for Africa. "The Council of Islamic Courts are no longer, though there may be remnants or individuals, and we continue to push for dialogue."
Frazer was expected to meet with African Union officials and Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni later Thursday.
Museveni has offered 1,000 peacekeepers, but Ugandan officials say they need help paying for the operation and a clear exit strategy.
The U.S. government also will consider ways to provide significant new assistance to the Somali government, she said.
With the Islamic movement's fighters on the run, concern has grown about extremists believed to be among them. Three al-Qaida suspects wanted in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa are believed to be leaders of the Council of Islamic Courts. The movement denies having any links to al-Qaida.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Wednesday that U.S. Navy vessels deployed off the Somali coast were looking for al-Qaida and allied militants trying to escape.
Aideed said that there are about 12,000-15,000 Ethiopian troops in Somalia, and when peacekeepers arrive in the country the Ethiopians will leave. Ethiopia has put the number much lower, at around 4,000, and said it would pull out within weeks.
Many Somalis fear that when they do, there will be a power vacuum and even a return to the anarchy and warlord rule of the past.
Somalia's last effective central government fell in 1991, when clan-based warlords overthrew military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other. The government was formed two years ago with the help of the United Nations, but has been weakened by internal rifts.
The intervention of Ethiopia late last month prompted a military advance that was a stunning turnaround for the government.
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Associated Press Writer Chris Tomlinson in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, contributed to this report.
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