Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
Abdinasir Mohamed Guled
29 June 2008
The last units of Ethiopian military troops have wholly withdrawn from Hiran region central Somalia on Saturday night according to the residents.
In the midnight residents saw the final Ethiopians army base of Kalabeyrka in Jawil area on the outskirt of Beledweyne empty following the soldiers pulled en route for the neighboring Galgadud region.
Some truck vehicle's drivers use street near the vacated army base told Shabelle English service that The Ethiopian troops with more than 30 armored vehicles have partially gone to Ferfer a town in Ethiopia.
It's yet unknown the motive behind their withdrawal.
The vacated army base is a strategic area for the civilian vehicle's activities between Hiran and Galgadudu regions.
No Ethiopian soldiers now Hiran in region at the moment.
The troops were deployed in April, after ex-Hiran Governor Yusuf Daboged fled Beledweyne in the face of an Islamist militia takeover.
It is not clear why the Ethiopian forces withdrew from the town and none of the regional officials have spoken publicly about the matter yet.
Else where armed Islamic courts union fighters have expanded into several areas of Hiran region where they have conducted anti-robber's operations following they entered into Beledweyne town later than the Ethiopian troops have in part pulled out.
The fighters arrived in the town early on saturday morning taking positions and keeping guard at the streets.
Locals ransacked the offices of the regional and municipal administration and the whereabouts of the regional Governor and mayor of the city of Beledweyn are not yet known, resources in Beledweyn, 300 km north of Mogadishu, told Shabelle.
Commanders of the UIC fighters spoke with local residents saying they will fight with Ethiopian troops if they returned to the city which has fallen to the Islamists early this year but they withdrew hours after they took over.
Sources in the city said that Ethiopian troops who since they returned to Beledweyn after they left early this year had been stationed in the town with the newly installed administration trying to consolidate their authority in the region.
The new Governor had said early this year that Islamists were inside the region and had been trying to reign in.
Ethiopian troops were deployed in the town and the former governor's forces disbanded.
Ethiopian troops, who are currently deployed in Somalia to assist the Somali transitional government assert its influence throughout the country, were reportedly heading to towns in the central region of Mugud.
The near daily attacks on Somali and Ethiopian troops by UNIC fighters continued unabated despite the signing of a peace deal early this month between Somali transitional government and a faction of the opposition group The Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia.
Another faction of the alliance based in Asmara, the Eritrean capital, and the Al-shabaab Islamist group have boycotted the talks held in Djibouti last month.
They vowed to continue their attacks on Ethiopian and Somali transitional government forces and officials until Ethiopian troops withdraw from Somalia.
Somali has been without a central authority since the ouster of former Somali ruler Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1991.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Shabelle Media Network. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
