Not good:

Islamic militias declared victory today over Somalia’s traditional warlords in the battle for control of Mogadishu, quelling months of fierce fighting in the lawless capital but raising new questions about whether this regime, which American officials have accused of sheltering terrorists, will steer the country down an extremist path.

“We want to restore peace and stability to Mogadishu,” Sheik Sharif Ahmed, chairman of the Islamic Courts Union, said in a radio broadcast, according to The Associated Press. “We are ready to meet and talk to anybody and any group for the interest of the people.”

Some of the warlords who have ruled over Mogadishu for the last 15 years were on the run today. One was holed up in a hospital north of the city. Others were on the outskirts of the capital, their forces having been pushed from the strategic center.

They had been defeated by militia fighters allied with the Islamic courts that have grown in influence throughout Somalia in recent years, filling a void left by the lack of a central government. The Islamists are a loose coalition of leaders who have put forward Islam, the universal religion in Somalia, as the way out of anarchy.

Today in Washington, a State Department spokesman said he had no details about the latest reports, but expressed concerns about the potential for aiding terrorists.

“We’re very interested in seeing that the Somali people start to build up institutions that are responsive to the Somali people, that at some point have the hope of being democratic institutions that respect the rights of all individuals there,” said the spokesman, Sean McCormack, at a briefing. “At the same time, we don’t want to see Somalia turned into a safe haven for foreign terrorists. We do have very real concerns about that.”

Uh, yeah.

Over the weekend:

Clashes erupted between a US-backed warlord alliance and Islamic militia in Somalia overnight as thousands of angry Muslims denounced the United States and vowed to destroy their enemies…

…A tense calm in the capital itself was broken by the demonstration in southern Mogadishu attended by about 5,000 Muslims who chanted anti-US slogans and compared President George W. Bush to a “Nazi.”

“We will fight and die for Somalia and Islam,” said Sheikh Mohamoud Sheikh Ibrahim, a senior cleric in the coalition of Mogadishu’s 11 Sharia courts accused by the United States and the alliance of harbouring terrorists.

“We will die for the sake of Allah and we will emerge victorious in our war against the US proxies here,” he said.

Ibrahim dismissed Mr Bush as a modern-day “nazi” and “pharaoh,” as the crowd protected by hundreds of heavily armed Islamist gunmen waved placards reading “Down with United States” and “No infidels in Mogadishu.”

Witnesses said the factions were deploying hundreds of reinforcements and scores of machine-gun-mounted pick-ups in areas where the most intense violence has been centred, sparking fears of fresh unrest in the city.

“We are contacting both sides involved in the conflict and they say they want peace, but to the contrary, the commanders are preparing themselves for war,” said mediator Ali Hassan.

“If this dangerous trend continues, Mogadishu will be very bad and the situation will get out of control,” he said.

We’re there.

AFP caption: Somalia women show a Koran during a demonstration to denounce the United States in the lawless capital Mogadishu, on June 2. Somali Islamists claimed to have seized full control of Mogadishu after four months of bloody fighting with a US-backed warlord alliance and were set to impose Sharia law across the city.(AFP/File/Ali Musa Abdi)

AP caption: Somalia Islamic militia members sit on a truck carrying an anti aircraft gun that they have seized from a secular alliance of warlords, Monday, June 5, 2006 after they took control of Mogadishu’s Deyniile neighborhood. An Islamic militia that wants to establish a fundamentalist government in Somalia said Monday it has seized control of the capital, after weeks of some of the bloodiest fighting in 15 years of anarchy in this Horn of Africa nation. (AP Photo/Mohamed Sheikh Nor)

Milblogger Charlie at Op-For weighs in on expansion of the Sharia sphere of influence. John at Op-For is also worried:

Sudan, then Somalia. I sincerely hope Nigeria isn’t next.

Creeping sharia (thanks to Diana West for the useful phrase) isn’t getting nearly enough attention as it should.

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