MOGADISHU — Hundreds gathered Tuesday in northern Mogadishu to protest an Islamic militia's takeover of the city after weeks of bloody fighting with secular warlords allegedly backed by the United States.
Members of the militia, which has alleged links to al-Qaeda, kept defensive positions about two kilometres from the protest, but did not move in to stop it.
On Monday, the militia became the first group to consolidate control over all of Mogadishu's neighbourhoods since the last government collapsed in 1991 and warlords took over, dividing the impoverished country of eight million people into a patchwork of rival fiefdoms. |