Ethiopians withdrawing from Mogadishu
Mon, 18 Aug 2008 01:35:49 GMT
Ethiopian troops are loading their heavy weaponry onto ships at Mogadishu port and will be heading toward Somaliland's Berbera port.
The Ethiopians are loading some 49 military tanks and 91 artillery carrier vehicles onto ships along with thousands of soldiers, a Press TV correspondent reported Sunday.
Also more than 5,000 Ethiopian soldiers have traveled on foot from Mogadishu to Afgoya on their way to Baidoa town, a senior Somali government official told Press TV on condition of anonymity. He described the move as 'a real surprise'.
A number of Ethiopian troops, however, are still maintaining positing in some military bases in South Mogadishu.
Ethiopian's withdrawal comes as the interim government and opposition parties in Somalia are holing a three-day UN-backed meeting aimed at finalizing details of a peace agreement worked out in June, ending the hostilities that have resulted in so many deaths in a civil war that has lasted 30 years.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since President Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. In 2006, US-backed Ethiopian troops invaded the country in an attempt to back Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG).