Somalis protest against new leaders in Kismayo

Somali Islamists arrested dozens of people and shot in the air to disperse a protest in Kismayo against the new administration at the key port it seized last month, witnesses said yesterday.

Scores of people took to the streets on Friday night, burning tyres and throwing stones, after the Islamists appointed a new governor, mayor and heads of the airport, port and the city's overall security.

The protesters said the Islamists, who captured Somalia's third city on September 25, had not shared power fairly among various clans when picking the port's new leadership.

The Islamists said the protests were illegal and organised by political trouble-makers. The protests were the fourth since the Islamists seized the port. The Islamists have prohibited the mild stimulant, usually traded by women and mostly chewed by men in Somalia. Pro-Islamist supporters have also held demonstrations in solidarity with the new leadership.

The Islamists, who control the capital Mogadishu, seized Kismayo without firing a shot, expanding their control over southern Somalia and effectively flanking the interim government, based in the provincial town of Baidoa, on three sides.

The United Nations refugee agency said on Friday more than 2,000 Somalis had fled across the border to Kenya over the last two days after reports of advances by Islamist forces on several southern towns this week.