MOGADISHU, Somalia — Government troops backed by Ethiopian soldiers were fighting about 600 Islamic militiamen in the southern tip of Somalia, an official spokesman said Thursday.
In the past 10 days, Ethiopian-backed government forces have driven out the Islamic movement that had controlled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia for more than six months. The Islamic movement retreated to the southern tip of Somalia and vowed to keep fighting, raising the specter of an Iraq-style guerrilla war.
The Somali forces have surrounded the Islamic militiamen "from every direction" in the southwestern district of Badade, near the Kenyan border, government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari told The Associated Press. "The fighting is going on," Dinari said. "We hope they will either surrender or be killed by our troops."
Kenya sent extra troops to the Somali frontier and closed its border, fearing an exodus of refugees and foreign fighters.
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Dinari said some Islamic militants have been trying to escape by sea. "But U.S. anti-terrorist forces have been deployed there to prevent them from escaping," he added.
In Washington on Wednesday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said U.S. Navy vessels were deployed off the Somali coast looking for al-Qaida and allied militants trying to escape.
Dinari said the government believes foreign terrorist elements are among the Islamic militiamen fighting in Badade.
With the Islamic movement's fighters on the run, concern has grown about extremists believed to be among them. Three al-Qaida suspects in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa are believed to be leaders of the Islamic movement.
An Islamic militant Web site said Thursday that Osama bin Laden's deputy would soon release a new message calling for Muslims to support the Islamic militants in Somalia. The Web site did not specify when the message from Ayman al-Zawahri would be released
"Rush in support of your brothers in Somalia," a banner on the Web site quoted al-Zawahri as saying.
The Somali Islamic movement denies having any links to al-Qaida.
Earlier Thursday, Somali Interior Minister Hussein Aideed said there are about 3,500 Islamists hiding in the capital and they are "likely to destabilize the security of the city."
Aideed did not explain the source of his information or what prompted his comments. Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi later tried to play down the threat and disputed Aideed's number of Islamists hiding in the capital, although he did not offer his own estimate.
Gedi said his government would begin efforts to disarm Somalis by seizing large arms caches located around Mogadishu. A house-by-house search will follow, the prime minister told journalists, without saying when that will happen.
Thursday was the deadline for people in Mogadishu to surrender their arms. Gedi said the disarmament program was progressing but offered no details.
