TASEK PAUH blogspot

Ali Mohamed Gedi, the Somali prime minister, has said at least 11 men accused of fighting alongside the Union of Islamic Courts have been arrested by Kenyan authorities as they tried to enter the country.

Somalia's interim government also set up gun collection points in the capital Mogadishu on Tuesday at the start of a drive to disarm one of the world's most dangerous cities.

Gedi has told Mogadishu residents to hand over their weapons by Thursday or be forcibly disarmed.

Gedi has also offered amnesty to Islamic courts fighters.

Kenya sent troops and police to its northeastern border area, to which Islamic courts fighters have retreated after a two-week war in Somalia.

"Eleven Eritreans, Oromos and Somalis are already in the hands of Kenyan intelligence forces," Gedi said on Tuesday, a day after Somali troops backed by Ethiopian forces seized control of the last Islamic courts stronghold in the south of the country.

"The Islamists are still moving trying to cross the border into Kenya. So we expect more people to be caught later on ... Everybody is mobilised here and in Kenya to arrest them."

Oromos, from southern Ethiopia, make up the backbone of the separatist Oromo Liberation Movement.

But Kenyan police said they were investigating eight men, including Eritreans and a Canadian, who were arrested as they tried to cross the Liboi border point, hours after the Islamic courts fighters fled their last stronghold in Kismayu, 500km south of the capital.

Among the eight there were three Eritreans, three Somalis, a Kenyan and a Canadian national of Ethiopian-Somali origin, they said. AlJazeera.net

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia