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Key Somali port falls to militants

Islamist gunmen patrolled the key southern port of Kismayo yesterday, vowing to impose strict Shariah law just hours after they seized the town in a new threat to Somalia's weak government.

Hundreds of turbaned, heavily armed fighters on "technicals" -- machine-gun mounted pick-up trucks -- took up positions in and around Kismayo as the country's powerful Islamist movement hailed the overnight takeover, witnesses said.

The armed Islamists rolled into Kismayo, about 500km south of Mogadishu, without firing a shot late on Sunday after the port's nominal rulers -- a local militia allied to the transitional government -- fled.

The move gives the Islamists, who already control the capital and much of southern Somalia, a new and strategic position from which they say they will block the deployment of foreign peacekeepers proposed to aid the government.

"Praise be to Allah, we took Kismayo without bloodshed," Islamist commander Sheikh Ali Mohamed Farah said.

"From now on, people here will enjoy peace and prosperity," he said. "We are going to implement Shariah ... as we have in other areas."

In Mogadishu, officials with the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS) said they wanted Kismayo to keep peacekeepers from landing there and use it as a base from which to seal the border with neighboring Kenya.

"I can confirm that the Islamic courts have taken the town," said SICS deputy security chief Sheikh Muktah Robow. "We took it peacefully and there are no fears of war," he added, stating that the objective was to close down the border with Kenya to prevent the deployment of foreign troops.

Islamist forces had been massing around Kismayo for days, raising tensions in the town and sending several hundred residents fleeing to Kenya, according to the UN refugee agency.

Residents appeared slightly wary of their new rulers yesterday, but the streets were calm and many who stayed in Kismayo welcomed the Islamists.

"We were quite excited this morning to see these men wearing turbans on their heads," Asha Moalim Birirwe, a local resident, said. "We now feel secure after two days of being afraid of fighting.

Until late on Sunday, Kismayo was in the hands of the Juba Valley Alliance (JVA), a militia led by the defense minister in the government, which has accused the Islamists of breaking a truce by expanding their territory.

JVA officials said their retreat to an area about 40km southwest of the town had been a "tactical withdrawal" intended to avoid needless bloodshed and vowed to recapture the port.

"We retreated tactically, but eventually we shall get back to the town and fight these invaders," Ali Moalim Dahir, a JVA commander, said.

"We will get help from foreign countries to fight these terrorists who invaded out town," he said.

The fall of Kismayo deals a severe blow to the government, which is based in the provincial town of Baidoa, and its hopes for the deployment of a 8,000-strong regional east African peacekeeping force.
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