Islamists say seize battlewagons from Somali militia

 By Sahra Abdi Ahmed
Reuters
Tuesday, October 17, 2006; 11:28 AM

"We have taken over 20 vehicles, including three big trucks mounted with anti-aircraft missiles," Dahir Ahmed, a local Islamist official, told Reuters by telephone.

"This was necessary in order to improve security."

There was no immediate independent confirmation about the seizure.

Dahir also said 68 gunmen formerly allied to Barre Hiraale, the defense minister in Somalia's embattled interim government, had joined the Islamist ranks in the south.

But Dahir said he had information other pro-government fighters were advancing on Islamist positions around Jilib.

"Fighting can start anytime," he said. "We want to hit them so hard that they will never recover."

Many Somalis fear that clashes between Islamists and other forces could escalate to a full blown conflict, which may suck in other regional powers and destabilize the Horn.

The claimed seizure in Jibil came two days after Abdullahi Maalim Ali, the Islamists' head of internal security, told Reuters the movement planned to take guns away from one of the world's most heavily armed populations.

If the ambitious plan is implemented in the country -- which became synonymous with anarchy after the 1991 ouster of a dictator -- it would leave the Islamists Somalia's sole possessors and regulators of weapons in areas they control.

The rise of the Islamists, who control the capital Mogadishu and a large swathe of southern Somalia, has posed a direct challenge to the interim government's attempt to reimpose central rule on the nation of 10 million people.

Although some Somalis complain of the severity of Islamist rule which adheres to strict sharia law, others credit the group with bringing a degree of law and order to a country starved of normalcy for 15 years.

(Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed in Mogadishu)

Source: Reuters, Oct. 18, 2006