MOGADISHU: Somalia’s Islamist fighters yesterday wrested control of Kismayu, the country’s biggest port town, where at least 70 people have died in three days of fighting, witnesses said.
“Kismayu is completely under the control of the Islamists,” said Mohamed Abdi, a trader and a former government official. “All militias were driven out and the town is now controlled by the Islamists,” said Farah Abdi, another local.
Clashes erupted between the Islamist fighters and a local militia in Kismayu, 500 km south of the capital Mogadishu, late Wednesday for the control of the town.
But a commander of a local clan militia said they had not been routed by the Islamists, claiming they made “a tactical withdrawal to avoid large number of civilian casualties.”
“There is no complete takeover and our forces will regain control of Kismayu in a very short time,” said Mohamud Hassan.
At least 12 people were killed yesterday, while several bodies still lay in the combat zones, where it was too dangerous for residents to go and collect bodies.
The militia is headed by Aden Barre Shire Hirale, a warlord who is also a lawmaker in the country’s transitional government, but who has strained relations with President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed’s administration.
“It is a matter of a day or two before we get Kismayu back,” said another militia commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Islamists were driven out of Kismayu in early 2007 after Ethiopian forces rolled into Somalia to back the government in fighting an Islamist movement that controlled much of central and southern Somalia. Kismayu was the last stronghold of the Islamists.
But since the toppling of the movement early last year, violence has steadily worsened.
