Ethiopia says victory in sight over Somali militias

Published on Wednesday 27 December 2006 03:45

ETHIOPIA yesterday claimed it was halfway to victory against Somali Islamic militiamen and could seize their Mogadishu stronghold within days following a week of war in the Horn of Africa.

The militias countered that they were ready for a long war and any attempt to oust them would prove disastrous. The Red Cross said hundreds were wounded in the latest fighting.

The Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, said his forces supporting Somalia's weak interim government had killed up to 1,000 Islamic fighters. There was no independent verification of that. The militias also claim to have killed hundreds.

"We have already completed half our mission, and as soon as we finish the second half, our troops will leave Somalia," Meles told a news conference in the Ethiopian capital.

He added that a handful of militia prisoners taken were holding British passports.

He said a force of between 3,000 and 4,000 Ethiopians had "broken the back" of the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) around the government's south-central outpost Baidoa, and that the militias were now in "full retreat". Ethiopia backs Somalia's secular interim government against the Islamic radicals who hold most of southern Somalia. Addis Ababa and Washington say the radicals are backed by al-Qaeda and by Ethiopia's enemy, Eritrea.