MOGADISHU — Fighters of the powerful Islamic Courts in Somalia on Saturday, December 2, seized control of a key Somali township, as the United States circulated an amended draft in the UN Security Council aimed at sending a regional peacekeeping force into the war-torn country.
The SICS fighters said they had taken control of Dinsoor, about 270 kilometers (170 miles) west of the capital Mogadishu, after pro-government militia pulled out, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"We are telling you that Dinsoor is under the control of the Islamic courts," said Sheikh Abdurahim Ali Muddey, the spokesman of the courts' representative body Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS).
"We will take military steps if any force violates the area," he added, referring to transitional government based in Baidoa, about 110 kilometers (69) miles north.
Somali government officials protested the advance, saying the SICS was seeking to provoke new unrest in the country that has been wracked by unrest since president Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991 and is currently reeling from devastating floods.
"This is provocation, we are still in the stage of calling them to stop" lawmaker Madobe Nunow said.
The seizure, which violates a previous truce and mutual recognition pact between the SICS and the government, comes days after Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi secured parliamentary approval for his plans to fight the SICS.
Addis Ababa denies deploying thousands of troops across the border but acknowledges sending military advisers and trainers to assist the West-backed backed but largely powerless Somali government.
Somali watchers have warned that an all-out war in Somalia would suck in Addis Ababa's chief rival, Eritrea, also accused of supporting the SICS, thereby pushing war in a regional conflict.
US Motion
The new development comes as the UN Security Council mulled Friday, December 1, a United States proposal to lift the 1992 arms embargo to enable African nations send in peacekeepers to protect the transitional government.
US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton said he was circulating the text to allow council members to send it to their capitals for instructions before it is taken up by experts Monday, December 3.
The new text, which takes into account amendments submitted by European countries, essentially endorses the proposed deployment of an 8,000-strong peacekeeping mission manned by troops from the seven-nation east African regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
It would also call for an easing of the 1992 arms embargo on Somalia to allow "supplies of weapons and military equipment and technical training and assistance intended solely for the support or use by the (IGAD) force."
"What we want to do is endorse the insertion of a regional peacekeeping force which many of the African states have called for in order to provide some measure of stability to permit a political solution (in Somalia)," Bolton told reporters.
But the deployment of the IGAD force is strongly opposed by the SICS, which seized Mogadishu in June after months of fighting and then grabbed most of the south and center of the country from a US-backed alliance of warlords.
The US draft would stress the council's willingness "to engage with all parties in Somalia, including the Union of Islamic Courts (or SICS), if they are committed to achieving a political settlement through peaceful and inclusive dialogue."
Diplomats said European council members offered amendments to improve the text to convince skeptics who fear the insertion of the force would in fact exacerbate an already volatile situation that could degenerate into a regional war.
The proposed IGAD force would exclude troops from Somalia's immediate neighbors, particularly Ethiopia, but could include some from Uganda, diplomats said.
Wednesday, the 15-member Security Council unanimously approved a Qatari-sponsored resolution calling on UN chief Kofi Annan to extend for six months the mandate of a panel of independent experts tasked with monitoring enforcement of the arms embargo.