Word: mogadishu
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...lightning advance, Ethiopian troops have fought Somalia's Islamist militias to within 50 miles of the Somali capital Mogadishu and declared they are preparing for a final attack on the city. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said 1,000 people have been killed and 3,000 wounded. The United Nations says 35,000 refugees have crossed into Kenya to escape the fighting and has suspended aid to 2 million Somalis. It has warned of a bloodbath should Ethiopia try to occupy the capital, and humanitarian agencies have called for a ceasefire. But the U.S. has signaled its tacit support...
...much of the time since the overthrow of President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, Mogadishu and much of Somalia has been ruled by clan-based warlords who laid waste the country and turned Mogadishu into an anarchic, continuous battlefield. More than 100,000 people died in the fighting in 1991-92, and when the U.N. launched a massive relief operation in April 1992, the U.S. was drawn into the conflict - at first guarding the relief, then delivering it, then attacking the warlords that were stealing it. In October 1993, in events depicted in the film Black Hawk Down, Somali militiamen...
...support for the corrupt, violent and self-serving warlords alienated many Somalis - and some analysts argue actually strengthened the popularity of the Islamists, enabling Somalia's top Islamic body, the Council of Islamic Courts, to take over Mogadishu and expel the warlords in June. The arrival of Islamist rule in Mogadishu, and the initial imposition of law and order that accompanied it, was widely welcomed on the war-torn streets of the capital. As Ethiopian troops advanced toward them, thousands of supporters of the Courts were reported to have staged rallies in Mogadishu. The Islamists are are also backed...
...Sheikh Hassan has now called on all Islamist forces to fall back to Mogadishu and prepare for a long war against the invaders. Whether that materializes remains to be seen. But what is certain is that the strife-torn Horn is more divided today than ever - and is increasingly the arena for an international war between the forces of radical Islam, and the West and its allies...
With those storm clouds gathering, the Islamists in Mogadishu are intent on solidifying their hold on power, dispensing their harsh brand of justice and leaving no doubt about who's in control. A reminder of that came on a clear blue morning in mid-October, when thousands of Somalis gathered at the parade ground of the old police barracks on the city's battered coast. Guards led a tall, undernourished man, condemned to death for killing another man, to a clearing in the center. After a reading from the Koran, the man conducted his ablutions, said a prayer...