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Ethiopian troops go house-to-house searching for weapons in Somali capital
06/06/07,
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - Hundreds of Ethiopian troops trying to protect this country's fragile government went
house-to-house searching for weapons Wednesday, a daunting task in a city teeming with firearms.
Several people were arrested and accused of being linked to an insurgency blamed for a string of deadly suicide bombs
and other attacks. The insurgents vow to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war unless the country becomes an Islamic state.
"These operations are part of the routine security tasks carried out with the help of our friends, the Ethiopians,"
Deputy Defense Minister Salad Ali Jelle said.
Ethiopia, the region's military powerhouse, was vital in helping the Somali government drive out Islamic radicals
who ruled much of the country for six months last year. But many in predominantly Muslim Somalia resent having troops
from Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population. The countries fought two brutal wars, the last in 1977.
Residents of Mogadishu said the operation had been going on since Tuesday, causing tension and fear.
"I am not a member of the insurgents, I am an independent businessman who runs a shop, but I am afraid of being
arrested because I look Islamic, with my long beard and the way I dress," said Sheik Abdulqadir.
Another resident, Shamsa Mohamed Ilmi, said the soldiers terrify her because her 16-year-old son was shot last week.
"These troops are very suspicious, they shot him as he was trying to take his mobile phone from his pocket," she said.
The Ethiopian troops here come under regular insurgent attacks. This week, Ethiopian troops fired at a would-be suicide
bomber speeding toward their base, blowing up the car and killing the bomber and a civilian standing nearby.
On Tuesday, an aid worker was wounded and his driver killed in the capital, said Susan Sandars, a regional spokeswoman for
Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders. Officials were investigating the circumstances of the shooting.
The two were not in a marked MSF car, Sandars said.
Somalia descended into chaos in 1991, when warlords ousted longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one
another. The government was formed in 2004 with the help of the United Nations, but it has struggled to assert any real
control throughout the country.
Elsewhere, fighting between two clans vying for control of Berhani village in southern Somalia have killed about
35 people since Saturday, clan elders said. Berhani is about 60 kilometers (40 miles) west of the port town of Kismayo.
Source:BBC(London)
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