Anti-Ethiopian Protest in Mogadishu

[High Plains]

Apparently not everyone greets the invading soldiers with flowers.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1DFE9450-FC4B-4536-8D42-D0D450124CBE.htm

Mogadishu on Friday witnessed a noisy demonstration against Ethiopian troops who have helped Somalia's weak government wrest control of the capital from fighters of the Islamic Courts Union.
The demonstration coincided with the arrival of Somalia's prime minister in the battle-scarred capital in a heavily armed convoy.

The protesters, chanting anti-Ethiopian slogans, threw stones and burnt tyres in two separate neighbourhoods as Ali Mohamed Gedi, the prime minister, left the nearby town of Afgoye, 20km away and headed for the capital. "Thousands of angry people have started a violent demonstration in the northern part of the city, particularly in Tawfiq and Suuqaholaha areas," said Abdulsatar Dahir Sabrie, a resident. "People are burning tyres in the streets and they are shouting 'We do not want Ethiopians to enter town.' They are also throwing stones," he added.

Demonstrator Abdulahi Shegow Nur shouted, "We do not want Ethiopian troops to enter our city. They must stay out."

Trucks fitted with loudspeakers roamed the city, blaring patriotic music to welcome the prime minister.Gedi drove through the international airport past Ethiopian tanks guarding the runway. Earlier, Ethiopian troops aboard tanks fired warning shots into the air after dozens of young men threw stones as the convoy travelled through the city. <snip> Gedi, whose interim government had been confined to its base in the provincial town of Baidoa until less than two weeks ago, said parliament would vote to declare martial law.

A senior Somali Islamic Courts leader on Friday vowed his fighters will "never surrender to Ethiopians and the government" and warned of guerrilla ambushes on the allied forces. "You think that Islamic courts have failed and the Ethiopian invaders have won in Somalia? I tell you within days everything will be changed," commander Sheikh Mohamed Ibrahim Bilal told AFP, a day after the fighters left the capital Mogadishu. "We will never surrender to Ethiopians and the government of Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed," he told AFP from Kismayo, the last Islamic fighters' stronghold, a port town about 500km south of Mogadishu.

<more at link above>

[High Plains]

1. I think this is far from over.

Somalis don't like Ethiopians. The two countries fought a long and stupid war not too long ago. Anyone who wants to rule Somalia on the shoulders of Ethiopian soldiers is going to have big problems.

Ethiopia is acting as a US proxy in this theater of the "war on terror."