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Islamic Militia Seizes Somalia's Capital
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Jun 06, 2006 12:24pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - Los Angeles Times |
| News Date | Tuesday, June 6, 2006 06:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | An Islamic militia alleged to have links to Al Qaeda seized Somalia's capital Monday after weeks of fighting with U.S.-backed secular warlords, raising fears that the nation could fall under the sway of the terrorist network.
The takeover came after 15 years of anarchy in this Horn of Africa nation and posed a direct challenge to a fledging U.N.-backed Somalian government based in Baidoa, 140 miles northwest of Mogadishu.
The militia is the first group to consolidate control over all of Mogadishu's neighborhoods since the last government collapsed in 1991 and warlords took over, dividing this impoverished country of nearly 9 million people into a patchwork of rival fiefdoms.
Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn., said the Islamic militia's victory was a turning point.
"It is exactly the same thing that happened with the rise to power of the Taliban" in Afghanistan, he said, adding that the extremists were "using the people's weariness of violence, rape and civil war" to gain support for a government based on Islamic law. |
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