MOGADISHU, 11 June 2006 — Islamist militiamen shot in the air to disperse hundreds of Somalis protesting early yesterday against moves by Shariah courts to stop them watching the World Cup in the capital Mogadishu, residents said.
The soccer tournament had drawn huge crowds to television screens set up under trees and iron-sheeted shacks, providing some escape from the tension that has gripped Mogadishu since Islamists seized control from an alliance of warlords on Monday.
Witnesses said scores of young men set fire to tires late on Friday in protests that carried on into the early hours of yesterday after Islamist gunmen pulled the plug on makeshift cinemas airing the soccer tournament.
Two people were wounded when militia tried to break up the demonstrations that centered around the main livestock market in an Islamist stronghold in the capital’s north, residents said.
“The Islamic militia of the area issued an order to stop them watching films as well as the World Cup this year in Germany,” said Elmi Muse, a resident contacted by Reuters. “It is unacceptable to oppress the people,” he added.
Similar moves by Islamist militia to close cinemas and video stores in Mogadishu last November triggered heavy fighting that killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 20.
Some residents fear the latest move to outlaw foreign entertainment is proof the Islamists want to create a Muslim state following their victory against a self-styled anti-terrorism coalition of secular warlords, believed to be backed by Washington.
The Islamic courts have been popular for restoring a semblance of order through Shariah law in parts of the anarchic city, carved into fiefdoms by warlords who ousted military ruler Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
However, the World Cup ban stirred resentment among locals, already weary of the fighting in Mogadishu that has killed 350 people in three months.
“The residents of this area are very sorry about the way the Islamic militia is behaving toward the people at a time when our society needs peace and stability,” said Moallim Hussein Abdi, a teacher.
One teenager was defiant. “We do not accept the Islamic militia stopping us from watching the World Cup,” Ahmed Yusuf, 19, said. “We’ll continue demonstrating until they relent.”
Meanwhile, Islamists holding most of the lawless Somali capital yesterday demanded the speedy surrender of holdout members of a battered US-backed warlord alliance as the two sides girded for new fighting.
But the warlords immediately rejected the call and reinforced positions in Mogadishu’s bullet-scarred north while bolstering defenses at their last remaining stronghold in the town of Jowhar, anticipating an attack.
The chairman of Mogadishu’s Joint Islamic Courts, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, said a resumption of four months of the deadliest clashes the capital has seen in 15 years was imminent if the warlords did not give up.
“We are here for peace and we don’t like war,” he told reporters at the courts’ headquarters in southern Mogadishu. “If the warlords don’t surrender, everybody knows what will happen, but we are not advocating violence.”
“We are giving them time to correct themselves,” Ahmed said, adding that the courts had sent traditional clan elders to negotiate a “peaceful surrender.” At least three senior members of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) are now holed up in northern Mogadishu Karan district, protected by the powerful Abgal sub-clan. They have rejected Islamist authority over the city and have vowed to resist any attempt to dislodge them at raucous rallies attended by thousands who have sworn they will not accept the imposition of Shariah law.
One of them, Bashir Raghe Shirar, said he and his colleagues would never surrender and that Ahmed and the courts represented only a small element of Somalia’s overwhelmingly moderate Muslim population.
“Sheikh Ahmed was speaking in an individual capacity without representing the vast majority of the Somali people,” he told AFP. “We urge him to refrain from violence and join the people in north Mogadishu.
“If we are attacked we will defend ourselves,” Shirar said, dismissing as a lie Ahmed’s claim to have sent mediators to negotiate. “We have not talked with the courts and no elders have been sent.”
“We will not dictate the future of Somalia,” Ahmed said. “The civil society, intellectuals, the Diaspora and the whole community will be consulted. It is the Somali people who will decide. We are not against any country in the world,” he said, adding that the “Americans were misinformed and made a quick decision” to back the warlords based on unsubstantiated charges the Islamic courts were dangerous.
The largely powerless transitional Somali government, formed in neighboring Kenya in 2004, has been wracked by infighting, unable to assert authority over most of the country and is now based in the town of Baidoa due to insecurity in the capital.
