Ethiopia to pull troops out of Somalia by year end

Nov 29, 2008, 7:48 GMT

Nairobi/Addis Ababa - Ethiopia is to pull its troops out of Somalia by the end of the year, increasing the likelihood that Islamist insurgents will completely overrun the weak central government.

Ethiopia has previously said it would pull out of its conflict- ridden neighbour but always promised to ensure it would not leave behind a security vacuum.

However, the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry said Friday that it would extract its several thousand soldiers unconditionally by the end of the year.

Ethiopian forces invaded in 2006 to help kick out the Islamic Courts' Union (ICU) - a hardline Islamist regime that was in power for six months.

A bloody insurgency then kicked off in early 2007. Aid agencies say around 10,000 civilians have died and over a million have fled as Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab has made huge gains.

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed recently admitted that the insurgents control most of southern and central Somalia and are now perched on the edge of the capital Mogadishu.

The insurgent push has been aided by political infighting between Yusuf and Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein that has paralysed the government.

The Ethiopians now appear to have grown tired of watching the government bicker while its troops take a pounding.

Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin earlier this week said the Somali authorities showed no readiness to shoulder responsibility and that the political squabble was about clan-based cronyism.

He also criticized Somali members of parliament for living in Nairobi, the capital of neighbouring Kenya, and only coming to Somalia to collect their salaries.

'The Ethiopian army will not stay for too long paying sacrifices in defence of Mogadishu airport and palace,' he said.

Hardline Islamists have refused to talk peace unless the Ethiopians first left Somalia, but it is not clear if they will now come to the table or continue to advance.

Al-Shabaab has already rejected a peace deal agreed between moderate opposition figures and the government.

There is a small African Union peacekeeping force of around 2,000 based in Somalia, but analysts do not feel this is strong enough to repulse the insurgents.

Ethiopia, a key US ally, has long been calling for a UN peacekeeping force to be sent into Somalia but this has not materialized.

The Horn of Africa nation has been plagued by chaos and civil war since the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping said the political chaos has also helped fuel a surge in piracy, which peaked with the recent seizure of a Saudi supertanker carrying crude oil worth 100 million dollars.

Almost 40 ships have been hijacked this year and the UN says that pirates have scooped as much as 30 million dollars in ransoms this year alone.