The clash broke out Wednesday in the Bakool region, after government troops attacked a base belonging to the al-Shabab militant group in the Rabdhure district.

Heavy gunfire was exchanged and at least one vehicle was burned. Another vehicle was reported to have been captured by the militants.

Al-Shabab controls much of southern and central Somalia after a two-year insurgency, and has moved to impose its own strict form of Islamic law in areas under its control.

Last week, Somalia’s cabinet voted to make Sharia the basis of Somalia’s legal system, in an effort to appease the insurgents.

At Least 14 Killed in Somalia Clash

Ethiopia’s prime minister said he could not predict what would happen when his troops leave Somalia completely, but he expected the extremist Islamic group, al-Shabab, and others to try to seize control.

Al-Shabab, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaida, says it wants to establish an Islamic state in Somalia.

“It would be strange if the Shabab and others did not try to capitalize on the fact that a significant proportion of the peacekeeping operation in Somalia was leaving and to try to fill in whatever vacuum they feel there is,” Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told journalists in Addis Ababa.

“But at the moment, what will happen next is an open question,” Meles said.

However, Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein told journalists he was confident Mogadishu is safe. And by sunset Thursday, Mogadishu residents reported a day without violence. It was unclear whether this was a lull in this week’s fighting or an indication of longer-term tranquility for the capital’s residents.

The African Union said over the weekend that the government and its Islamic allies have about 10,000 troops, but they are poorly equipped and require logistical support.

The departure of the Ethiopians has raised fears of a power vacuum at a time when Somalia is also facing rampant piracy off its coast. The country has not had a functioning government since 1991 and few expect that a Somali force can establish order even with the help of a relatively moderate faction of Islamists who had agreed to share power in October.

Al-Shabab has said that it now will focus its attacks on the about 2,400 African Union peacekeepers based in Mogadishu.

Somalia’s weak U.N.-backed government called in the Ethiopian troops in December 2006 to oust an umbrella Islamic group — which included the al-Shabab extremists — that had controlled southern Somalia and the capital for six months.

The Ethiopian army, one of Africa’s largest, was viewed by many Somalis as abusive and heavy-handed.

Sahro Sheik Yusuf, a mother of four who fled her house in southern Mogadishu two years ago because the Ethiopians had a base nearby, said Thursday was a special day for her.

“I feel as if I’m liberated today. I’m ecstatic,” said Yusuf, adding she had lived in a camp outside Mogadishu without running water and with waste all around her. “I’m happy to return to my home.”

But few expect the Somali government now can ensure security. It controls only pockets of the capital, Mogadishu, and Baidoa, where the parliament sits — and has tried to rule without a president for weeks.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in fighting in the past year, particularly in the capital, and hundreds of thousands have fled the violence.

Since Tuesday’s handover, Islamic insurgents have continued attacking government installations. At least 24 civilians were killed and more than 50 wounded in violence Wednesday, medical staff reported.

“The Ethiopian troops have withdrawn from the capital,” Hussein told journalists at the airport before leaving the country. “The city is now safe. I urge government troops and other groups to work together toward keeping peace in the city.”

Hussein told journalists he will be a candidate when the parliament convenes to elect a new president.

Abdullahi Yusuf resigned from the presidency last month, saying he had lost control of the country to Islamic insurgents. Parliament’s speaker has been acting president until a new one is elected before the end of January.

The United States has circulated a draft resolution calling for a U.N. peacekeeping force to be deployed in Somalia to replace the small African Union force.

But in a rare interview Thursday, hardline opposition leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys said Somalia does not need more peacekeepers.

“They should stop the military interference in Somalia — especially the U.S,” said Aweys, the Eritrea-based leader of a faction of the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia. A U.N. Security Council resolution has designated Aweys a terrorist, something he has denied.

Aweys, while not calling for any attacks on the AU troops, said they should leave Somalia.

The Associated Press: Last Ethiopian troops leave Somalia’s capital

Hundreds of residents have flocked to see the now-empty Ethiopian bases north of the city, some of them dancing and singing to celebrate the departure of the deeply unpopular Ethiopian forces.

At a handover ceremony at the presidential palace Tuesday, Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein thanked the Ethiopian troops for their sacrifices.

Some Somali leaders say the pullout could create a security vacuum and endanger the government. But the U.N. envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, expressed hope that the withdrawal might convince some Islamist insurgents to stop fighting.

A moderate Islamist movement allied with the government says its forces have moved in to take control of the former Ethiopian bases.

Ethiopia has said it plans to bring home all its troops by the end of the week. The nation sent thousands of troops into Somalia in late 2006 to help the government defeat an Islamist movement that had seized control of the capital and other cities.

There were reports of continued fighting in Mogadishu Tuesday, and witnesses reported at least 11 dead in clashes on Monday between Islamist insurgents and Ethiopian-backed government forces.

On Monday, the United States circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a U.N. peacekeeping force in Somalia to help fill the void left by Ethiopia’s departure.

The draft would renew the mandate of African Union peacekeepers currently in Somalia, but eventually replace them with a stronger international force. The draft calls for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to develop a mandate for the new force by April 15, and for a council decision by June 1.

Battles between the government troops and the Islamist insurgents have killed thousands of Somalis and displaced more than a million others over the past two years.
The Islamists have seized control of many towns in recent weeks but appear split over the level of Islamic law that should be enforced. The hardline Al-Shabab group favors a strict form of Sharia that many Somalis oppose.

VOA News – Ethiopia Pulling Troops from Mogadishu

Bodies littered the streets of the bullet-pocked city, and hundreds of residents began to flee. Both sides claimed victory.

Violence between Islamist rebels and government forces has intensified over the past few weeks. Islamist insurgents now control much of south central Somalia, including many neighborhoods within Mogadishu, and seem intent on seizing the few enclaves the government, with Ethiopian muscle, still controls.

The gun battles on Friday started just after dawn outside the house of a local district commissioner, Ahmed Daaci, in a southern neighborhood of the city. At least 17 people died and 6 were wounded in that fighting, according to witnesses’ accounts.

Mr. Daaci, who survived the attack, said that government forces had repulsed a group of insurgents who attacked his house, and that 17 of the attackers were killed.

The bodies were left on display for hours, after government forces blocked residents from collecting them, an apparent attempt to ward off further attacks.

“I saw 12 dead bodies lying on the streets, and there were 2 bodies in front of my house,” said Abdurashid Abdullahi, a resident of the Medina neighborhood, where the fighting took place. “They are the Islamists,” he said.

More fighting erupted in the afternoon, when Islamist insurgents and government forces, backed by Ethiopian troops, fired artillery at each other. Six children were killed when a mortar shell slammed into their house, said a resident who lived next to the crushed building.

Ethiopian troops were to start leaving some positions in Mogadishu on Friday, under terms of a recent United Nations-brokered peace deal in Djibouti between the transitional government and a coalition of Islamist groups. African Union troops are scheduled to replace them.

But there were no signs of a withdrawal, witnesses said.

One of the insurgent groups, a faction of the Union of Islamic Courts, considered one of the more moderate Islamist groups in Somalia, said it had lost six men in the day’s fighting and had killed 15 government soldiers. The figures could not be independently verified.

Ethiopian troops entered the country in late 2006 and ousted an Islamist administration that briefly controlled much of south and central Somalia. But the Islamists regrouped, and have steadily progressed from staging sporadic hit-and-run guerrilla attacks to seizing — and holding — large swaths of territory.

A deal reached late last month between the transitional government and the main Islamist-led opposition group called for Ethiopian troops to pull out of areas in Mogadishu and the central garrison town of Beledweyne by Nov. 21, which was Friday.

Under the deal, the Somali government and the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia are to assemble a 10,000-strong police force to help the African Union peacekeepers control the areas.

Somalia has been without a functioning central government since 1991, when Mohammed Siad Barre was removed from power and the army fell into the hands of clan militias, throwing the country into lawlessness.

NYTimes.com

Three of the five bombings hit the breakaway republic of Somaliland, one of them exploding at the palace of the regional president. Bombers also simultaneously attacked two intelligence facilities in the semiautonomous northern region of Puntland. All the attacks were in the morning.

No one claimed responsibility for the attacks. But the U.N. and Ethiopia have supported Somalia’s weak central government in its battle with Islamic rebels and the rebels have launched such strikes in the past to coincide with U.N.-led efforts to end the turmoil in the Horn of Africa nation.

Witness Ismail Mohamed, 22, said people were screaming and begging for help after the blast at the presidential palace.

“It was a horrendous scene,” said Mohamed.

Officials said at least two of the 22 dead were suicide bombers.

Somaliland President Dahir Riyale Kahin’s secretary died in the blast at the presidential palace, but the president was not hurt, Adani said. The two suicide bombers and a security official died in the attacks in Puntland, and five security officials were wounded, said Muse Gelle Yusuf, governor of the northern port city of Bossaso in Puntland.

Somaliland has long sought international recognition as being its own nation, separate from Somalia. The region is a hotbed of abductions and piracy.

The U.N. compound in Somaliland was hit by a suicide car bomb.

“There are known casualties as well as deaths, but the numbers are currently being verified,” said Dawn Elizabeth Blalock, a spokeswoman for the U.N.’s Somalia program in Nairobi, Kenya.

Islamic militants have waged an Iraq-style insurgency against Somali government troops and their Ethiopian allies for almost two years. The nearly daily mortar attacks and gunbattles have killed thousands of Somali civilians in the capital, deaths that all sides blame on each other.

Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991, when clan warlords ousted longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other. The current government was formed in 2004 with the help of the United Nations, but has failed to protect citizens from violence or the country’s poverty.

Ethiopia has troops in Somalia to prop up the weak Somali administration which is battling Islamist rebels.

Somalia’s north has tried to sever ties with the chaotic south, which includes the beleaguered capital, Mogadishu. Puntland has a semiautonomous administration.

International leaders, including the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, met Wednesday in Nairobi, Kenya, to discuss Somalia’s crisis. Members of Somalia’s government, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and some members of Somalia’s opposition also attended.

But there were no representatives of the hard-line members of the opposition, who have denounced any talks with the government and are behind much of the bloodshed in the capital, Mogadishu. Al-Shabab, the military wing of Somalia’s ousted Islamic movement, has not participated in any talks. The State Department considers al-Shabab, or “The Youth,” a terrorist organization.

The meeting ended Monday afternoon with all the participants releasing a statement lamenting the “the lack of unity and unhelpful competition among the leadership” in Somalia and calling for a new Cabinet to be formed within 15 days.

Yahoo! News

Ahmed was born in the town of Gaalkacyo, in the Mudug Region. He was elected as President of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), by a session of the Transitional Federal Parliament (TFP) held in neighbouring Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, on October 10, 2004, and sworn in on October 14, 2004.

He was among the first cadet officials sent to Italy in 1957, together with Mohamed Farrah Aidid and others. Since then he remained in the Army and participated in the war of 1964 and the Ogaden War of 1977, and was decorated for bravery in both wars. In 1978 Ahmed, together with a group of officials mostly from his own Majeerteen (Darod) clan, participated in a failed coup attempt against the regime of Siad Barre. He escaped to Kenya, then to Ethiopia where he started a rebel movement called SODAF which later became the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF)

Disagreements arose from Mr. Yusuf and his Ethiopian host when Somalia and Ethiopia signed 1984 a pact not support oppossing militias who were based on each other’s country. For his refusal to obey Ethiopian generals, Mr. Yusuf was sent to jail where he served for five years until his release when the Dergue was overthrown in 1991.

Later he became President of Puntland state. In the 2004 election he defeated all the notable leaders of Somalia including Abdiqasim Salad Hassan, Cadow and all the warlords of Mogadishu. His government, backed by considerable Ethiopian forces, successfully defeated the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) led by Hassan Dahir Aweys. The Somali and Ethiopian forces marched into Mogadishu on the last day of 2006. However the Islamists regrouped and have reversed most of the gains the TFG and the Ethiopian forces made in December 2006. The Insurgency are a real threat to the Somali government who need the Ethiopian occupation to stay in power.

Assassination attempt

On September 18, 2006, a suicide car bomber smashed his vehicle into the President’s convoy outside the National Parliament in Baidoa. The attack killed four of the President’s bodyguards, as well as the President’s brother. Six attackers were also killed in the subsequent gun battle. The President’s life was most likely saved by the fact that he travelled in the second vehicle in the convoy rather than the front one, a decoy. The Islamic Court’s Union, which had recently taken control of much of the country were blamed for the attack.

After the beginning of the War in Somalia on December 21, 2006, with the help of Ethiopia, the TFG forces took control of Somalia and the capital, Mogadishu, from the hands of the Islamic Courts Union. By 28 December the Transitional Federal Government captured Mogadishu as the ICU forces fled.

On January 8, 2007 as the Battle of Ras Kamboni raged, TFG President Ahmed entered Mogadishu for the first time since being elected. It was announced the government would be relocated to Villa Somalia, in Mogadishu, from its interim location at Baidoa. This marks the first time since the fall of Siad Barre in 1991 that with the help of the Ethiopian troops, a Somali government controlled the most of the country except the breakaway republic of Somaliland in the north. How ever it wasn’t to last. The Islamists regrouped and took back most of their territories. If the Ethiopian troops withdrew, the Somali government would collapse because its national army is not well trained.

Wikipedia

More then 10,000 people have been killed and 1 million displaced in fighting since early last year, pitting President Abdullahi Yusuf’s government and allied Ethiopian forces against Islamist rebels — mainly the al Shabaab militia, listed by Washington as a terrorist group.

Islamist insurgents have stepped up their attacks on government and Ethiopian targets in recent months, vowing not to relent until Addis Ababa withdraws its soldiers from Somalia.

“Effective 26 October 2008, ceasefire observance has been announced. It will become effective 5 November 2008 … starting 21 November 2008, the Ethiopian troops will relocate from areas of the cities of Beledweyn and Mogadishu,” the agreement said.

“The second phase of the troop withdrawal shall be completed within 120 days,” said the deal, signed in Djibouti by the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) opposition.

But the deal was rejected by hardliners, who said it would have no effect on the ground.

“The agreement reached in Djibouti on Sunday is an illusion to deceive the Somalis. Neither the international community nor Ethiopia itself announced the complete withdrawal of Ethiopian troops,” said Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, leader of a breakaway hardline faction of ARS.

It remained unclear when exactly the last Ethiopian troops would leave Somalian territory.

Despite the peace deal, heavy fighting between Islamists and government forces killed dozens including a local al Shabaab commander over the weekend.

Government troops recaptured three towns of Bardale, Wajid and Hudur in southern Somalia near Baidoa, the seat of Somalia’s parliament over the weekend.

An African Union (AU) peacekeeping force will be responsible for security in the areas vacated by Ethiopian forces, with the help of Somali government troops and opposition ARS security forces, until the deployment of U.N. forces, the deal said.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991 and the transitional government is the 14th attempt to establish one. (Reporting by Wangui Kanina; additional reporting by Ibrahim Mohamed and Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

Reuters AlertNet