Damn. It took just 13 days:
Well-armed troops drove into Kismayo after clearing roads laced with land mines that had been left by Islamic fighters fleeing a 13-day military onslaught by government troops backed by Ethiopian tanks and MiG fighter jets.
“We have entered and captured the city,” Maj. Gen. Ahmed Musa told The Associated Press while riding aboard a truck into Kismayo, where an estimated 3,000 hardline Islamic fighters had vowed to make a last stand but melted away under artillery fire.
Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi offered amnesty to hundreds of Islamic fighters if they gave themselves up, but made no such offer to leaders of the group. He also ordered a countrywide disarmament that goes into effect Tuesday, an immense task in Somalia, which is awash with weapons after a 15-year civil war.
“The warlord era in Somalia is now over,” Gedi said at a news conference in the recently captured capital, Mogadishu, giving a three-day deadline for the handover of all weapons.
But as we all know conventional warfare is only a small part of the overall conflict. Battles are being won but radical Islam’s world war will continue.
One Response
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January 1st, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Funny how you can side with the devil when it’s in your interest. Somalia has been unstable for the past 16 years with America in direct conflict with the current interim government that is being supported by Ethiopia. The Islamists brought stability for the first time in 16 years but this is something that seems hard to swallow an “Islamic leadership not controlled by America, bringing stability”. Again its radical Islam is to blame and not radical foreign powers