14/10/08 (B469-B) Press TV : Une centaine de soldats somaliens se rend aux forces de l’UIC et déposent leurs armes. 100 Somali soldiers surrender to UIC (En Anglais – Info lecteur)

Some 100 Somali soldiers in the capital Mogadishu have surrendered their weapons to the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) fighters.

The soldiers escaped from a military check post near an Ethiopian base in southern Mogadishu and handed over their weapons to the UIC after they came under a heavy attack by the insurgents, Press TV correspondent reported Tuesday. The soldiers were stationed in the area to defend Ethiopian troops in the nearby base.

“Thank God, Somali soldiers understood that if they had died defending Ethiopian troops, they would have died in vain,” a UIC combatant said.

The incident comes just hours after 10 Somali soldiers and military officers in Mogadishu surrendered their weapons to the al-Shabaab group, an offshoot of the UIC.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since the Horn of Africa nation dictator Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. In 2006, US-backed Ethiopian troops invaded the country in an attempt to back Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG).