Somali PM appeals for protection
2006-09-26 12:05
Mogadishu - Somalia's prime minister have appealed for help from the international community after rival Islamists took a strategic port town over the weekend and now control a significant part of the country.
Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi also reiterated a call to lift a United Nations arms embargo on the Horn of Africa nation.
Gedi said: "I warn the world to help my government. Otherwise Somalia will be a terrorist safe haven."
The prime minister's transitional government viewed the seizure of key port town, Kismayo, on Sunday as a breach of an agreement it signed with the Union of Islamic Courts earlier this month.
Islamists seized the capital, Mogadishu, earlier this year and had since taken other parts of the country, with the intention of establishing an Islamic state.
Govt 'invites' Ethiopian soldiers
In another development, witnesses near the government's provincial capital, Baidoa, reported the presence of hundreds of Ethiopian soldiers.
Dairy farmer Nunay Omar said: "I saw a number of uniformed forces. They bought milk from us and they were not speaking the Somali language."
The Islamists accused the transitional government of inviting the Ethiopian soldiers across the border and said they would defend themselves against them.
Ethiopia supported the interim government, but had denied sending troops to the conflict-ridden country, which had been without a central government since the 1991 ouster of the regime of Siad Barre.
Earlier this month, the African Union granted a request by the transitional government to send in a regional peacekeeping force, which the Islamists had opposed.
Sapa-dpa
- SAPA