- A new town, only 17 kilometres outside the capital, has been captured by Somali Islamists, shortly after they seized of the port of Marka, some 90 kilometres outside Mogadishu. The militant wing of the Islamist movement is rapidly gaining ground again.
Yesterday morning, the militant wing of the Islamic Courts Union, al-Shabaab, announced the capture of the strategic port town of Marka, close to the capital. Later in the evening, al-Shabaab fighters confirmed they had been able to take control if the strategic town of Elasha Biyaha, only 17 kilometres south-west of Mogadishu. The town is on the main road connecting Mogadishu and Baidoa, where Somalia's transitional parliament is located.
This is the sixth territorial gain of the militant Islamists in only one week, with troops from the transitional government, its allied warlords and militias and its Ethiopian allies unable to halt the advance.
Earlier this week, al-Shabaab fighters launched an insurgency in the Lower Shabelle region in south-central Somalia. Here, the captured the two towns of Koryoley and Bulo Marer. Lower Shabelle is seen as a strategic region, hosting both productive farmlands and some of the few remaining operative ports and airports in the country. Marka, now under Islamist control, is the provincial capital.
According to the Brussels-based think-tank International Crisis Group (ICG), the security situation in Somalia has worsened since early 2008, with an "Islamist insurgency led by al-Shabaab militant group spread to Lower Shabelle, Puntland, Hiran, Bay, Bakool and Juba regions.
An August peace deal between the transitional government and an alliance of rebel groups, signed in Djibouti, provided some hope for stability. The agreement foresaw a withdrawal of Ethiopian troops in exchange for a ceasefire. However, radical Islamists headed by al-Shabaab have rejected the peace accord.
During the latest month, al-Shabaab has intensified its insurgency while Ethiopian troops are lowering their presence and efforts to protect the transitional government. This has raised renewed fears that power in Somalia will immediately fall back into the radical Islamists' hands as soon as Ethiopian troops have left the country.
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