03/09/08 (B463) Shabelle / Le Président somalien affirme que des éléments prouvent que les accords de Djibouti, entre le Gouvernement et l’ARS, ont été violés – Somali president says Djibouti agreement “violated” (En Anglais – Info lecteur)

Somalia’s transitional government Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed has announced that there are elements violated the agreement of Djibouti that jointly signed by his Gov and the alliance for the reliberaion of Somalia, the major opposition group.

“There are groups those geared up for fight, disgusted peace, they rejected the last inclusive agreement of Djibouti” Yusuf said in a news conference he held in Mogadishu.

He added that Kismayo town has been seized by the islamists saying that no group can have authority to capture city except “the government”

“We will not persist to endure the control of Kismayo by the rebels, we will recapture it in any case we are capable of” the president said.

Elsewhere the reconciliation minister of the transitional government Abdirisaq Ashkir on his side said that the islamists have invaded Kismayo by mistake.

“The government will seize Kismayo also will set up hard-hitting administration there as soon as possible” Ashkir said in a news conference in Mogadishu.

He added that Kismayo town’s attack by the islamists would chip away at the agreement signed in Djibouti.

He elsewhere asked the ARS’s opposition group based in Djibouti to reach the aid organization’s food aids to the in need population in the country.

Interim Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf has long maintained that Kismayo is not in the hands of the Ethiopian-backed transitional government.

There are no Ethiopian forces present in Kismayo and the Jubba regions as a whole, although clan militias there claim they are part of the government.

Kismayo airport is intact and the city boasts one of only four sea ports in Somalia, and two of these are in northern breakaway regions of the country which, like the SRRC, do not recognise the authority of the TNG.

The other port in the south is in Mogadishu and has not been operational since 1995.

Most maritime trade is conducted 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital in Merka, but this town has no harbour or port facilities so ships have to unload to small boats which are then unloaded manually from the beach.

Whoever controls Kismayo controls imports of much food and electronic goods and exports of bananas and charcoal, among other merchandise and commodities.

Morgan whose militias have been ousted from the town by the islamists had been preparing for this latest offensive for more than a year but the campaign only began in earnest with the formation of the SRRC and the support that brought from other forces opposed to the government.

Somalia has been at war since 1991, when clan-based militias ousted Siad Barre, a socialist dictator, and then fought for power among themselves.

The conflict is complicated by clan loyalties and the involvement of archenemies Eritrea and Ethiopia, who both back opposite sides in the fighting.

The last UN peacekeeping force in Somalia included American troops who arrived in 1992 and tried to arrest warlords and create a government.

The US involvement ended in October 1993, when fighters shot down a US Army Black Hawk helicopter during a battle that killed 18 American soldiers.

Since then, Ethiopian troops have helped Somalia’s fragile transitional government push the Islamists from power in Mogadishu and much of the south, but failed to establish security or improve living standards.