Somali government forces and Ethiopian allies rained down mortars and rockets on Islamist fighters dug in near a southern port town on Sunday to start a battle that could be the last stand for the Islamists. As night fell, the Islamists who fled Mogadishu three days ago to take refuge around the towns of Kismayu and nearby Jilib, fired back from trenches in scrubby bushland, witnesses said. "We will continue fighting the Ethiopians from everywhere until they leave Somalia," Islamist spokesman Abdirahim Ali Mudey told Reuters from the area. It was unclear if, after two weeks of war, the two sides would go on fighting through the night and into the New Year. Night battles are unusual in Somalia. The besieged Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) has rallied several thousand fighters at Jilib, just north of the port town of Kismayu on the shores of the Indian Ocean, after a retreat south 300 km (190 miles) from the capital Mogadishu. Fearing a blood-bath, residents ran for their lives, carrying blankets, food and water on their heads. "Two-thirds of the population in Jilib have fled the town... nearly 4,700 have fled," aid worker Osman Mohamed said.
The Islamists have built trenches with bulldozers and have more than 60 "technicals" -- pickups mounted with heavy weapons -- supporting some 3,000 fighters, witnesses say. "We decided to come to the bush here in order to continue with the jihad against Ethiopia. I am on the frontline, I'm just waiting to kill the invading Ethiopians," spokesman Mudey added.
Amid confusing initial reports, residents said they saw mortars and rockets falling on deserted houses in Jilib from Bulobaley on one of two roads the Ethiopian-Somali government force had been marching along toward the Islamist defenses. "They are using heavy and light weapons against each other. I have to flee from some of the weapons that are hitting the town," resident Madey Osman said. Jilib lies about 45 kms (28 miles) north of Kismayu, where senior Islamist leaders Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys and Sheikh Sharif Ahmed are based.The intervention of Ethiopia has reversed the fortunes of the government and the hardline religious SICC, which just two weeks ago controlled the capital and appeared on the verge of routing a weak interim government stranded in a provincial town. Now the government has control of Mogadishu and the Islamists -- without tanks or planes -- are fighting with their backs to the sea and Somalia's southern border with Kenya.
Kenya has reinforced its northern border and U.S. forces are also said to be in the region, including the sea, to prevent foreign militants aligned with the Islamists from escaping. Ethiopia says it has 4,000 troops in Somalia, though many believe that number could be far higher. Somalia's government has not given troop numbers, but is thought by experts to have several thousand.
Islamist leaders called their flight to Kismayu a tactical move to avoid civilian bloodshed in Mogadishu. The SICC who have been offered an amnesty by the government if they surrender, say they are ready to negotiate with the U.N.-endorsed interim government, but that the Ethiopian soldiers backing it must first leave.
Born out of sharia courts operating in Mogadishu, the Islamists threw U.S.-backed warlords out of the capital in June before going on to take a swathe of south Somalia. They brought order to Mogadishu for the first time since 1991 when warlords ousted a dictator. But some of their hardline practices -- like closing cinemas and holding public executions -- angered some Somalis and fueled U.S. and Ethiopian accusations they were a dangerous Taliban-style movement.
Both Addis Ababa and Washington say the SICC is linked to al Qaeda, an accusation the movement says is trumped up to justify foreign intervention. Ethiopia also accuses arch-foe Eritrea of supporting the Islamists. Eritrea has accused Ethiopia of planting Eritrean identity cards on the battlefield to back up those claims.
Mogadishu residents have greeted the joint Ethiopian and government force with a mix of jubilation, fear and protests. President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi face a monumental task to tame the city that U.S. forces left more than a decade ago after an ill-fated intervention captured in the Hollywood film "Black Hawk Down." Analysts say it is hard to see how Yusuf and Gedi can establish authority and pacify Somalia without the military presence of Ethiopia, which has vowed to exit as soon as it can.