By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 27, 2006; 3:54 PM
With Ethiopian troops, tanks and helicopters closing in and military planes buzzing overhead, the situation inside Mogadishu seemed confused, with witnesses reporting thousands of Somalis who have known little besides fighting for the past 15 years fleeing the capital.
Militias loyal to Somalia's Islamic Courts movement, having retreated in recent days from most of the towns they had taken earlier this year, were spotted shedding uniforms and fleeing the capital Wednesday, while other witnesses reported young men signing up with Islamic militias at several mosques around the city.
Leaders of the Islamic movement have said that the war is merely "entering a new phase." The movement's leader Sheik Mohamoud Ibrahim Suley told the Associated Press on Wednesday that "our snakes of defense were let loose, now they are ready to bite the enemy everywhere in Somalia."
Regional analysts have said that the Islamic Court militias, who are vastly outgunned by the Ethiopians in conventional military terms, were always counting on waging a guerrilla war.
"On one level you could say they've been beaten by the Ethiopians and they're trying to spin it," said Matt Bryden, a consultant with the International Crisis Group, a foreign policy think tank. "On the other hand, you could say this is what they expected, and of course they now go into a guerrilla war, and we get into an intractable, unwinnable conflict."
A spokesman for Somalia's interim government, Abdirahman Dinari, said the interim government could enter Mogadishu in the next day or two. The fragile but internationally-recognized government, cobbled together by regional negotiators last year, has spent most of its time in exile in Nairobi.
"Mogadishu is our capital" Dinari said. "So the government wants to consult religious moderates and other civil society activists on how we can make a strategy together that will solve our problems."
The question of the moment remains whether Ethiopian troops will actually enter Mogadishu or simply surround it in an attempt to isolate the Islamists .
A draft United Nations Security Council statement calling for a ceasefire remained stalled, while African Union officials asked for a meeting of regional leaders in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, and called on Ethiopian forces to withdraw.
On Tuesday, however, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said that his campaign was only half completed, and that he planned to clear out all the "extremists" from the capital before leaving the country.
Experts have said that any large scale invasion of Mogadishu by Ethiopian troopscould wind up in a bloodbath.
In 1992 and 1993, 12,000 foreign troops were unable to subdue the chaotic city, and 18 American soldiers were killed in an incident depicted in the film and book "Black Hawk Down."
Though the United States has for the most part remained in the background as the current situation has deteriorated, Somalia has historically been of great strategic importance to the U.S.
It is situated near the Middle East and significant Red Sea shipping lanes. And more recently, Somalia has drawn attention because of fears that the country, which has been without a central government since 1991, could become a base for terrorist groups.
In the past, some Islamic Court leaders have expressed a desire to create a "Greater Somalia" including ethnically Somali portions of Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. Ethiopia and Somalia have been to war twice in the past 45 years over the Ethiopian region called the Ogaden.
Both the U.S. and Ethiopia have accused the Courts of harboring terrorists, and earlier this month, the U.S. State Department went further, saying that the Islamic Courts were now controlled by an Al-Qaeda cell -- a claim that regional experts believe is exaggerated, and fed in part by questionable intelligence from Ethiopia.
As the fighting continued yesterday, an already dire humanitarian situation inSomalia appeared to worsen. Officials with the International Committee of the Red Cross said that the number of wounded had surpassed 800; Dinari said that Ethiopian and government troops had killed more than 1,000 Islamic fighters, although aid groups could not confirm that figure.
Source: Washington Post, Dec 27, 2007