Somali radio staff detained after Islamist on air
By Abdi Sheikh
MOGADISHU, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Somali troops arrested the manager and newscaster of a Mogadishu radio station on Thursday after they broadcast an Islamist leader's claim of responsibility for a suicide bomb, journalists said.
Sheikh Mukhtar Robow spoke to Radio Simba on Wednesday night saying Islamists waging jihad against the Somali government and its Ethiopian military allies were responsible for the blast in Baidoa that killed three and injured several others.
"Government troops with four battle-wagons surrounded the building," said a Simba journalist, who asked not to be named. "They entered the radio building and forced us to close it completely. Then they took away the radio manager, Abdullahi Ali Farah -- who was later released -- and a newscaster, Mohamed Farah Talyani."
The early morning arrests came after a suicide bomber rammed his car into an Ethiopian military base in Baidoa town on Wednesday, killing himself and two soldiers.
That attack was near a hotel where Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi was preparing for a parliamentary session.
Robow is believed to be the No. 2 in the military wing, or shabab, of the Islamic Courts movement that ruled Mogadishu and most of south Somalia for six months in 2006 until it was ousted by allied Somali-Ethiopian troops at the New Year.
In his telephone interview with Radio Simba, Robow did not give away his location. But he is believed to be in Mogadishu.
His shabab has been spearheading an Iraq-style insurgency for most of the year, waging near-daily attacks on government and Ethiopian positions.
Simba journalists said manager Farah was released later in the day. But the incident, following a series of other government measures against media, drew condemnation from international press watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
"The absolute power accorded to the troops in Mogadishu logically leads to arbitrary rule, to which journalists often fall victim," it said. "The rule of law must be restored at once in the capital to put an end to these abuses."
In Baidoa, prime minister Gedi and President Abdullahi Yusuf were meeting supporters ahead of an expected showdown between the two political rivals in Somalia's parliament.
On Wednesday, 22 of Gedi's ministers -- the majority of his Cabinet -- held a press conference to call for a vote of confidence in their boss. That was intended to counteract moves by pro-Yusuf legislators to move a no confidence vote.
The split between the two key figures in the government is exasperating the international community, which has backed the administration as the only way to restore central rule in the Horn of Africa nation of 9 million people.
Somalia slid into anarchy and has been without an effective national administration since the 1991 ouster of a dictator.
(Additional reporting by Aweys Yusuf and Ahmed Mohamed in Baidoa)
