Mogadishu Set to Fall?
Ethiopian and Somali government troops have apparently routed the Islamic Courts forces, and now say that they expect to take Mogadishu without a fight:
Somali and Ethiopian troops drove Islamic fighters out of the last major town before Mogadishu on Wednesday, and the government predicted the capital and stronghold of the radical Islamists would fall without a fight.Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said no assault was planned on Mogadishu because the forces of the Council of Islamic Courts were crumbling so fast.
“Islamic courts militias are already on the run and we hope that Mogadishu will fall to our hands without firing a shot,” he said.
The Islamic Courts movement had grown steadily in power for six months, until the dramatic entry into the war by Ethiopian troops last week. Since then, fortunes have changed dramatically with the Islamists in full retreat.
I have no idea how this will play out, but it is hard to see how Islamists being routed can be a bad thing. The Associated Press can't resist a warning, however:
Any effort by the Somali government or Ethiopia to take the capital risks a disaster similar to the U.S. intervention in Somalia in 1992.
As opposed, I guess, to the disaster of having the capital in the hands of fanatics who murder people for insufficient praying.
