Guns were silent in the sole stronghold of Somalia's interim
government Tuesday as an Islamist deadline to Ethiopian troops to
leave or face holy war passed with conciliatory signs.
Around the dusty agricultural trading post where Somalia's shaky
government conducts business from a converted warehouse, residents
reported calm despite the threat by the country's Islamist
movement.
Nonetheless, the Islamists and Ethiopian-backed government
troops remained dug in along a tense frontline just kilometers
apart.
Baidoa is a potential ground zero in what many fear will become
a regional war, sucking in Horn of Africa rivals Ethiopia and
Eritrea and spawning suicide bombings in east Africa.
The Somali Islamic Courts Council (SICC) said they wanted peace
talks, and backed off a threat by defence chief Yusuf Mohamed Siad
"Inda'ade" that gave the Ethiopians a week to leave thrusting war
fears into overdrive.
"We want the talks to continue and the Ethiopian troops to
leave," SICC spokesman Abdirahman Ali Mudey said. "We did not mean
we will attack them if they don't pull out but that talks cannot go
ahead unless they pull out."
Inda'ade has made inflammatory remarks in the past, and experts
say there has always been a moderate-hardline split in the SICC,
which kicked US-backed warlords out of Mogadishu in June and have
since taken over most of southern Somalia.
The government dismissed the deadline as the latest unfulfilled
threat by the SICC, who had pledged jihad (holy war) against
Ethiopians soldiers they view as invaders but then said they would
only fight a defensive war.
"We only care about their actions and not what they say. As
previously said by the president, we will not be the first to
attack," Information Minister Ali Ahmed Jama "Jangali" said.
Ethiopia says it has only a few hundred military trainers in
Somalia. Military experts believe there are roughly 15,000-20,000
Ethiopian combat troops there.
(China Daily December 20, 2006)
