By Ibrahim Mohamed and Abdi Guled
Jan 14
MOGADISHU – Somali Islamists fired mortars at the presidential palace and ambushed departing Ethiopian soldiers on Wednesday, starting battles that killed at least 21 people and wounded a further 48, witnesses said.
The violence underlined fears of an upsurge in bloodshed after Ethiopia’s military exit began in earnest this week. Witnesses said security forces including African Union (AU) peacekeepers guarding the hill-top palace compound in the coastal capital responded to the Islamist attack with volleys of artillery shells, shaking the city for several hours.
Suspected militants from the al Shabaab group also ambushed a convoy of departing Ethiopian soldiers on a street not far from the palace. The Ethiopians fought back with a tank. Read More.
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Related: Ethiopia hands over security of Somalia
Above: Gabre Yohannes Abate, the Ethiopian troop
commander in Somalia watches during a farewell ceremony
which took place in the presidential palace Tuesday Jan. 13,
2009 .The commander of Ethiopian troops has formally handed
over security of Somalia to joint force of Somali government
security and militiamen from a faction of the country’s Islamists.
(AP Photo/Mohamed Sheikh Nor)
By Mohamed Amiin Adow
January 13, 2009
NAIROBI, Kenya — Ethiopian forces propping up Somalia’s transitional government have begun their withdrawal from the country, pulling out of two key bases in Mogadishu, eyewitnesses and officials said Tuesday.
The Ethiopians withdrew late Monday from two former factories in the northeast part of the capital, the eyewitnesses and officials said.
Hundreds of jubilant residents poured into the abandoned bases Tuesday.
“We are so glad that they have left after two years of their presence in our neighborhood,” cried Asha Omar, a resident of the neighborhood where one of the factories is located.
Forces from the Islamic Courts Union, the largest Islamic group and one of those fighting against the presence of the Ethiopian forces, were immediately seen taking over the two bases vacated by the Ethiopians.
Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 to depose the Islamic government and install a U.N.-backed transitional government. The Islamists, whom the United States accuses of having ties to the al Qaeda terrorist network, responded with a guerrilla campaign that has crippled efforts to support a U.N.-backed transitional government. Read more at CNN.