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"Our country is open to Muslims worldwide. Let them fight in Somalia and wage jihad," said Siad. (Reuters) |
MOGADISHU — In a major escalation of the situation in the Horn of African country, Ethiopian warplanes attacked targets inside Somalia on Sunday, December 24, while the powerful Islamic Courts of Somalia (SICS) opened the door for world Muslims to join "jihad" against Ethiopia.
"Ethiopian aircraft fired missiles at volunteers centers in the town of Beledweyne [300 kilometers north of Mogadishu]," Ali Berri, a local resident, told IslamnOnline.net.
Ethiopian warplanes also hit Bandiradley, 700 kilometers from the capital, and other frontier outposts earlier Sunday, witnesses and residents said.
The SICS, now in control of Mogadishu and much of southern and central Somalia, accused Ethiopian of using MiG warplanes and helicopters.
"Today the war is being fought by land and air," Sheikh Mahmud Ibrahim Suley, an SICS official, told reporters in Mogadishu.
Power neighbor Ethiopia admitted for the first time that its troops and tanks were inside Somalia fighting the SICS fighters.
"After tolerance for so many months, we have been forced to take these measures as our security and stability and sovereignty have been threatened," the Ethiopian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Addis Ababa has long denied a major military presence beyond trainers and advisers helping Somalia's powerless interim government of President Abdullahi Yusuf.
A recent confidential UN report confirmed that 6,000 to 8,000 Ethiopian troops were operating inside Somalia.
Jihad
Meanwhile, Somali experts warned Sunday that a call by a senior SICS leader for foreign Muslim fighters to join "jihad" against Ethiopia is a double-edged sword.
"Jihadists from across the Arab and Muslim countries might heed the call and start flocking to Somalia," Abdullah Balak, editor-in-chief of Al-Ayam newspaper and an expert in African affairs, told IOL.
"History might repeat itself," he said, referring to Arabs and Muslims who volunteered in 1970s to fight alongside Afghans against the Soviet Union.
"The Afghan government was then protected by the Soviet Union. Today, the interim government in Somalia directly seeks the protection of Ethiopia, though there is no comparison between the military forces of the Ethiopians and the Soviets," he added.
"Our country is open to Muslims worldwide. Let them fight in Somalia and wage jihad, and God willing, attack Addis Ababa," SICS Defense Chief Yusuf Mohamed Siad said on Saturday, December 23.
"This is highly significant and serious because it comes, for the first time, from a senior SICS official," said Balak.
Vans with loudspeakers patrolled the streets of Mogadishu Saturday asking residents and shopkeepers to contribute to the "jihad" efforts.
Several radio stations aired patriotic songs, urging Somalis to defend their country.
Al-Qaeda
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SICS fighters have been fighting Ethiopian-backed government forces since December 20
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Balak warned that the jihad call could attract droves of Al-Qaeda ideologists from across the world.
"I think it will be a new battlefield like Iraq and Afghanistan, but this time between the SICS and foreign fighters led by Al-Qaeda ideologists, on the one hand, and the Ethiopian government and the US, on the other," he said.
The Somalia expert said the SICS is preoccupied now with how to win the war.
"They are more concerned with winning the hearts and minds of the Arabs and Muslims worldwide to win the war than being linked to Al-Qaeda by the US or the UN."
The SICS had distanced itself from comments made by Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
In a July audiotape, Bin Laden warned "countries of the world against responding to America and sending international forces to Somalia."
Daali Adam, another expert in Somali affairs, warned that the jihad call could backfire at the end of the day.
"It will be used as a pretext to link the SICS to extremist organizations," he told IOL.
"Practically speaking," he added, "it will be difficult for foreign fighters to reach Somalia because there are US bases in Djibouti to monitor Somalia."
Fishermen had told IOL that cameras and other electronic devices were installed in a remote island by CIA operatives to monitor the Horn of Africa country.
They said four cameras linked to solar cells and state-of-the-art equipment had been found on the depopulated rocky island of Burr Gaabo near the Kenyan borders.
Somalia has lacked an effective government since the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Siad Barre.
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