by Ali Musa Abdi
March 11, 2007
Deputy Defence Minister Salad Ali Jelle vowed to crackdown on armed civilians as African Union peacekeepers prepared to start stabilizing one of the most dangerous and gun-infested cities in the world.
"Before the end of the month, each house in Mogadishu will be searched and no civilians will be allowed to have a weapon and the government will be in charge of security," Jelle told a press briefing in Mogadishu.
Jelle said the government was training about 45,000 troops to help the peacekeepers.
"Armed forces will be in every street in Mogadishu and trouble makers will have two choices: either to support the government or flee the country. It will take around 30 days to make the city peaceful," he said.
"We are urging people to surrender weapons as soon as the armed forces arrive in Mogadishu. There is no way bandits can stay operational here," he said.
"We are not begging for the surrender of arms, we are going to forcefully snatch them from the people," added Jelle, one of the most vocal officials in Mogadishu.
The Somali capital has been a theatre of pitched artillery battles since January when joint Ethiopia-Somali forces ousted an Islamist movement from the country's southern and central regions.
Dozens of civilians have been killed in the recent weeks, as a vortex of deadly violence has engulfed the seaside capital where AU peacekeepers from Uganda arrived last week.
The attacks, blamed on remnants of the Islamist movement, have increasingly targeted government officials, their relatives as well as Ethiopian and AU troops in Mogadishu, the epicentre of the violence that had debilitated the country.
Similar attempts to forcefully disarm civilians in January, with help from Ethiopian troops, resulted in an explosion of violence that threatened to plunge Mogadishu into a fresh bout of bloodletting.
Around 1,000 Ugandan soldiers have already arrived in Mogadishu, where a radical Islamist commander has vowed to kill them. They are the initial contigent of about 8,000 peacekeepers which the AU plans to deploy in the Somalia.
The Ugandan troops, who have secured the airport are awaiting for tanks that he headed to Mogadishu from the Kenyan port city of Mombasa by sea, before starting to patrol the city.
AU has only secured half of the required force, but Burundi has offered 1,700 troops and Nigeria 850, while Malawi and Ghana are also expected to contribute.
Analysts have warned the government will be a spent force unless it stems violence in Somalia despite a chorus of support from the western powers, notably the United States, which is increasingly worried that the country will become a breeding ground for extremist groups.
An attempt by the United Nations and United States to restore stability between 1993 and 1995 failed disastrously after peacekeepers became embroiled in local clan politics.
Somalia has lacked a functional government since the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, despite more than 14 internationally-backed attempts to restore one to this country of about 10 million inhabitants.
In addition to the violence, recurrent famine, drought and flooding have claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced millions others, many pouring into neighbouring countries.
Source: AFP, Mar 11, 2007