MOGADISHU, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Islamist insurgents fired mortar bombs at Somalia's presidential palace on Wednesday, underlining fears of more bloodshed a day after Ethiopian troops supporting the government quit bases in Mogadishu. Witnesses said security forces guarding the hill-top palace compound in the capital responded with their own volley of artillery shells, but there was no immediate word on casualties.
Some analysts say the withdrawal of some 3,000 Ethiopian soldiers will leave a power vacuum, triggering more violence by rebels who have battled the U.N.-backed interim administration for two years, and are now increasingly fighting each other.
Others hope it could be positive, removing forces seen by many locals as occupiers and spurring more moderate Islamist factions to get involved in forming a new, inclusive government.
Few Somalis expressed hope for the future.
"No Somali wants the Ethiopians to stay, but there will be chaos whether they withdraw or not," said a spokesman of Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca, a government-allied Sunni Islamist group.
He said hardliners like al Shabaab -- which Washington says has links to al Qaeda -- and militants backed by Somali exiles in Eritrea planned to fight the government and moderate groups like his if they tried to form a power-sharing administration.
Sheikh Hassan Yacqub, an al Shabaab spokesman in Kismayu, a strategic southern port seized by the group in August, said he doubted Ethiopia would withdraw completely from its neighbour. more..http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LE197065.htm
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