Somalia's Islamists fled towards Kenya or melted into the southern hills on Monday after abandoning their last stronghold to advancing government forces backed by Ethiopian troops, tanks and planes, according to Reuters. In just two weeks, Ethiopia's military muscle has enabled the government to break out of its provincial enclave, drive the Somali Islamic Courts Council (SICC) from the capital and end six months of Islamist rule across much of the south. The government said that despite its military successes it recognised that a political settlement was still vital in order to head off the possibility of an Islamist insurgency. "We need to end the impasse politically," Interior Minister Hussein Mohamed Farah Aideed told reporters in the capital. "If we do not reconcile with them then they will start an insurgency like in Iraq." Several thousand of the Islamist fighters who retreated from Mogadishu on Thursday took a stand 300 km (186 miles) to the south near Kismayu port, but disappeared Sunday night after trading artillery fire with Ethiopian and government troops. The leaders and fighters SICC, who fled Mogadishu on Thursday after six months rule, headed further south along the Indian Ocean coast towards neighbouring Kenya, residents said.
