MOGADISHU, Somalia — Islamic insurgents appeared to be scrambling for power Saturday, taking over several police stations in the capital as Ethiopian troops propping up the government began to pull out, witnesses said.
Many fear the pullout — and last month’s resignation of Somalia’s president — will cause Islamic militant groups to fight among themselves for power, bringing more chaos to this beleaguered Horn of Africa nation.
“We have to show commitment to do our part in security, we want to help people feel secure,” Abdirahim Issa Adow, a spokesman for one wing of the insurgency, told The Associated Press after deploying troops to three of Mogadishu’s 14 police stations. His Union of Islamic Courts is not allied to the most powerful insurgent group, al-Shabab, which runs most of Somalia.
The United States accuses al-Shabab of harboring al-Qaeda-linked terrorists who blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Many of the insurgency’s senior figures are Islamic radicals. The Associated Press
