By Sahal Abdulle
Saturday, April 28, 2007
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Allied Somali-Ethiopian troops patrolled Mogadishu on Saturday, hunting for weapons after claiming significant gains in battles with insurgents that have killed at least 1,300 people since February.
"The big war finished the day before yesterday," President Abdullahi Yusuf told reporters at the hilltop presidential palace, which rebels attacked several times in recent weeks.
"The government was fighting the remnants of the Islamic Courts. The government was not at war with the Somali public."
Interim government forces were deployed on Saturday in the city's Bakara Market, a former stronghold of rebels frustrating the administration's efforts to restore central rule in the Horn of Africa nation for the first time in 16 years.
"We are ready to collaborate with the government soldiers and we also welcome their arrival in the area," Abas Ahmed Duale, spokesman for a committee representing the market's businessmen, told independent Somali broadcaster Shabelle.
Some homes and commercial properties, including a Coca Cola plant, were looted on Friday as relative calm returned after nine-days of Mogadishu's heaviest fighting for years.
On Saturday, government troops were posted at strategic junctions in the city, searching cars and passengers for arms
Source: Reuters, April 28, 2007