Mogadishu overtaken by fighters

Mogadishu overtaken by fighters
Rivals claim militia linked to al-Qaida.

Published Monday, June 5, 2006

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - An Islamic militia said today it has seized Somalia’s capital after weeks of bloody fighting and 15 years of anarchy in this Horn of Africa nation, raising fears the nation could fall under the sway of al-Qaida.

The militia appeared in control of Mogadishu. Most of the leaders of a secular alliance that opposed them - and was rumored to be backed by the United States - appeared to have fled the city today.

"We want to restore peace and stability to Mogadishu. We are ready to meet and talk to anybody and any group for the interest of the people," Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, chairman of the Islamic Courts Union, said on a radio broadcast.

The militia has been battling a secular alliance of warlords for control of the country, with the fight intensifying since February. More than 300 people have been killed and 1,700 wounded, many of them civilians caught in the crossfire.

The secular alliance says the militias have links to al-Qaida. Attempts to reach alliance leaders were not immediately successful.

The United States is widely believed to be backing the secular alliance in an attempt to root out any al-Qaida members operating in the Horn of Africa, but U.S. officials have refused to comment.

The United States has not carried out any direct action in Somalia since the deaths of 18 servicemen in a 1993 battle depicted in the film "Black Hawk Down."

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said recently that three al-Qaida leaders indicted in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania are being sheltered by Islamic leaders in Mogadishu.

The fundamentalists accuse the alliance of working for the CIA.

Somalia, an impoverished country of 8 million, has been divided into rival fiefdoms since 1991, when warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

The Islamic militants are the first group to consolidate control over all of Mogadishu’s clan-divided neighborhoods since then, giving them enormous political and economic power in Somalia.