KHARTOUM, 16 July 2006 — Somalia’s newly powerful Islamists have agreed to respect the legitimacy of the fragile government and continue talks despite a rebuff by the president, an Arab League envoy said yesterday.

President Abdullahi Yusuf decided on Friday to boycott talks in Sudan this weekend meant to avert war between his government and the Islamist movement which has seized the capital and part of the south, threatening his administration’s limited power.

Despite the rebuff, Islamist delegates flew to Khartoum on Friday and held initial discussions with the Arab League, which brokered a first round of talks last month.

“They stressed the importance of saving the legitimacy of the government...their readiness not to escalate against the government and in particular not to make any attacks against Baidoa,” Arab League envoy Zeid Al Sabban said.

“They stressed that they want to open a frank discussion with the government...(and) are in total readiness to pave the way for the government to return to Mogadishu,” Sabban said.

The interim government is based in the provincial town of Baidoa because it lacks the strength to move to Mogadishu, which descended into anarchy after warlords ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

The Islamists seized the city from US-backed warlords on June 5 and advanced into the hinterland.

The Western-backed government, wary of the Islamists’ plan to impose strict Shariah law, says their assaults on remaining warlords around Mogadishu and their southward advance broke an accord reached last month in Khartoum to end military campaigns.

The Islamists, led by hard-line cleric Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, have been mopping up remnants of pro-warlord militias this week in what they say is a move to ensure peace.

“It’s a red line for the Arab League to see escalations in Somalia and we will never accept attacks against Baidoa. (The point) was very well taken by the Islamic Courts,” Sabban said.

Sabban and other Arab League envoys, who will hold more talks with the Islamists in Khartoum, said they were confident the Somali government would send a delegation.

“We hope to have a delegation from the government in the next few days,” Sabban said.

Islamists Complete Takeover of Mogadishu

Somali Islamists completed their takeover of the lawless capital yesterday as the last remaining fighters loyal to a vanquished US-backed warlord alliance surrendered their weapons.

Clerics hailed the development, which saw Mogadishu’s last secular district come under Muslim rule and came amid rising tension between the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS) and Somalia’s weak transitional government.

“The rule of Muse Sudi Yalahow and his fellow gangs has finished and the Islamic era has begun,” said Sheikh Nuur Ali, chairman of the Shariah law court that will now administer the city’s northern Karan district.

Muse Sudi Yalahow, a warlord and former member of the government, had run Karan for much of the past 16 years during which Somalia has been engulfed by lawlessness.

“The creation of an Islamic-based administration in Karan... is a step forward and it is Allah’s will that this process is now fully completed,” SICS defense chairman Sheikh Muktar Robow said at a hand-over ceremony.

Weapons from more than 100 fighters and nine so-called “battlewagons” — machine— and anti-aircraft-gun mounted pick-ups — were turned over to the Islamists, who defeated the warlord forces in months of bloody battles.