Ethiopia Withdraws, Somalis Celebrate

MOGADISHU — Ethiopian troops began on Tuesday, January 13, withdrawing from the capital Mogadishu after two years of deployment, to the celebration of jubilant Somalis.

"Ethiopian troops have left their strategic main bases in Mogadishu and the others will withdraw today," Suleiman Olad Roble of the opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia, told Reuters.

Ethiopian troops abandoned two bases overnight in the Yakshid district in the north of Mogadishu, according to local residents.

The 3000 troops were expected to leave the other 10 bases by late Tuesday.

Ethiopia began withdrawing from its war-wracked Horn of Africa neighbor at the beginning of January.

Overjoyed Somalis celebrated the pullout of the Ethiopians, their long-rime regional rival.

"We were chanting 'Praise be to Allah', who made the troops leave our area," Hussein Awale told Reuters.

Hundreds of jubilant Somalis gathered at one of the four military bases vacated by the Ethiopians.

Somalia has plunged into an abyss of almost daily violence since Ethiopia sent troops into the country in 2006 to topple the Islamic Courts, which restored a rare peace to the country.

Since then, more than 10,000 have been killed and one million displaced.

Rights groups have accused the Ethiopian troops of perpetrating rights abuses, including rape and extrajudicial executions of civilians.

Security Concerns

Some believing the withdrawal of the Ethiopian troops would bode well for the future of the war-ravaged country.

"The ball is now in the court of the Somalis, particularly those who said they were only fighting against the Ethiopian forces, to stop the senseless killings and violence," UN envoy Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah said in a statement.

Somalia's interim government and the ARS, headed by Islamic Courts leader Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, recently signed a UN-brokered power-sharing deal.

It gives ARS 200 seats in the new 500-member parliament while 75 others will be set aside for civil society members, including women.

But experts fear things would not be that smooth, especially with other groups still fighting the government and refusing to join the political process.

The Shebab movement, once an off-shot of the Islamic Courts, has been gaining grounds across Somalia.

At least 11 civilians were killed by shells in Mogadishu on Monday when fighters battled government forces and their Ethiopian allies.

More than 50 people were killed last week in clashes between Shebab and the rival Ahlu sunna Wal-jama`ah in central Somalia.

Somalia has lacked an effective central government since the 1991 downfall of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre sparking a series of bloody power struggles.

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