ADDIS ABABA, Dec 26: Fighters of the Somalia Islamic Courts Council are in full retreat after Ethiopian airstrikes and a ground offensive that have killed up to 1,000 of its militants, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Tuesday.
“A joint Somali government and Ethiopian force has broken the back of the SICC forces... These forces are in full retreat,” Mr Meles told reporters in Addis Ababa, adding that up to 1,000 fighters had been killed.
“A few are Somali but the majority are foreigners,” he said of the dead.
Addis Ababa has vowed to protect Somalia’s weak interim government from the SICC based in Mogadishu. A week of artillery and mortar duels between the two sides has spiralled into open war that both sides say has killed hundreds.
Mr Meles said most fighters of the SICC had fled to their home areas. He said Ethiopian forces were now hunting down troops from his arch-foe Eritrea, which he accuses of supporting the SICC.
Ethiopia says the SICC has recruited foreign militants, and that a handful of almost 300 prisoners taken after one battle for a central Somali town held British passports.
Mr Meles said he had sent between 3,000 and 4,000 Ethiopian troops into Somalia, but denied they were occupiers. He said it was a small force, but carried a lot of firepower.
“Our military is skirting the towns and attacking only military bases,” he said and added: “We have already completed half our mission, and as soon as we finish the second half, our troops will leave Somalia.”
He said he had information 3,000 wounded had been taken to hospital in the Islamist stronghold Mogadishu. But he said there were few civilian casualties because most of the fighting had taken place away from settlements.
RETREAT: Fighters of the Council of Islamic Courts were in a tactical retreat on Tuesday, a senior SICC leader said, as government and Ethiopian troops advanced on three fronts in the battle for control of Somalia.
Somalia’s internationally-backed government called on the SICC to surrender and promised them amnesty if they lay down their weapons and stop opposing the government, spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said from Baidoa, the seat of the government.
Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a top leader of the Islamic group, said he asked his troops to withdraw from some areas. “The war is entering a new phase,” he said and added: “We will fight Ethiopia for a long, long time and we expect the war to go everyplace.” Mr Ahmed declined to explain his comments in greater detail, but some leaders have threatened a guerrilla war to include suicide bombings in Addis Ababa.
The retreat came one day after Ethiopian jets bombed the country’s two main airports.—Agencies
