Child Warriors Lured Into Somali Conflict

Adirisaq Khalid Ahmed was shining shoes in Mogadishu's labyrinthine marketplace when a soldier from Islamic movement approached, asking him to join up.

Ahmed, all of 16 years old, said yes.

Two months later, the Islamic militia has been driven from power and an unknown number of young soldiers like Ahmed are hiding in and around the capital, some of them wounded and too frightened to leave their homes.

Interviews with several boys as young as 14 who said they fought in the recent weeks of violence in Somalia lend credence to accusations that children have been recruited for battle in this chaotic Horn of Africa nation. The government and the Islamic movement have denied recruiting child soldiers, but Christian Balslev-Olesen, UNICEF's Somalia representative, said Friday that witness accounts suggest otherwise.

"I fought with the enemy and was shot," Ahmed told The Associated Press from his home, where his uncle is helping him recover from gunshots to his back and thigh. He spoke on condition that he not be photographed for fear of reprisals from the government, which with the help of Ethiopian troops drove the Islamic movement fighters out of Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia two weeks ago. He also fears Somalis who resent the strict interpretation of Islam that had been imposed by the Islamic movement, known as the Council of Islamic Courts.

"But I am still ready to fight when I recover from my wounds," the teenager said.

Balslev-Olesen, UNICEF's Somalia representative, said there was evidence of child soldiers being recruited by both sides in Somalia, "but we have to say the (Islamic courts) have been much more public in recruiting child soldiers."

He added that it was impossible to estimate the number of young soldiers due to continuing volatility. The U.N. estimates 300,000 child soldiers are involved in conflicts around the world, and child soldiers have fought in many African wars.

"If you have young people and children experiencing that kind of fighting and killing, that influences their mentality and thinking and mind set for the rest of their lives," Balslev-Olesen said.

In a statement Friday, UNICEF and Save the Children demanded "that all children associated with armed forces or groups must be immediately released from their ranks, or from detention centers where they might currently be held."

Somalia has not had a functioning government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, sinking the Horn of Africa nation of 7 million people into chaos.

The Islamic courts seized control of the capital and much of the south six months ago, bringing a semblance of stability but terrifying residents with threats of public executions and floggings of criminals.

Somali troops, backed by the powerful Ethiopian military, routed the Islamic militia two weeks ago and allowed the country's government to enter the capital for the first time since the administration was established in 2004. Most of the Islamic militiamen have dispersed, but a few hardcore members have fled toward the Kenyan border and the Indian Ocean.

A government official said Friday that Somalia's warlords have agreed to disarm and join a new national army. But violence in the capital the same day brought home the challenge of restoring order and establishing real authority in the fractious and heavily armed country.

The announcement followed a meeting between President Abdullahi Yusuf and clan warlords that proceeded even as, just outside, clan gunmen fired a rocket-propelled grenade and briefly exchanged gunfire with government troops. The fighting, which one fighter said was sparked by a dispute over where to park an armored car, left at least six dead and 10 wounded.

The rout of the Islamic fundamentalist movement, which had controlled most of Somalia for the past six months, allowed the country's weak U.N.-backed transitional government to enter the capital, Mogadishu, for the first time since it was established in 2004.

Besides clan divisions, resentment of Ethiopia's intervention and remnants of the Islamic movement also were likely to bedevil the government for some time to come.

Leaders of the Islamic movement have vowed from their hideouts to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war, and al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's deputy has called on militants to carry out suicide attacks on Ethiopian troops.

Awale Sheik Osman, 14, said he killed several "hostile" soldiers — he didn't know if they were Ethiopian or Somali government troops — in Idale, 37 miles southwest of the government base of Baidoa. Now back in Mogadishu and living with his mother, he's frightened to leave the house.

"Unfortunately I got a bullet in my left hand, but I wanted to die for the defense of my religion," he said. Osman, whose hand was bandaged, said he was recruited at a mosque near his house.

Three boys who say the Islamic movement gave them guns and asked them to fight said they managed to escape just in time.

"We were sitting near our homes in Mogadishu and (they) came to us and asked if we were good Muslims," said Hassan Abdi Haji, 15, dressed in a black T-shirt and sipping an orange soda. "They gave us rifles and said they would come back with uniforms."

But before the recruiters could return, Somali and Ethiopian forces drove the militants from the capital.

"We threw the guns away," Haji said, adding: "Then we called our parents."