Ethiopia's prime minister said Islamic fighters were in a tactical retreat yesterday after suffering massive casualties as government and Ethiopian troops advanced for control of Somalia.

"I hear reports of close to 3,000 injured in Mogadishu's hospitals ... and well over 1,000 might have died. Some of them are Somalis, but a very significant proportion of them are not Somalis," Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told reporters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. He cited internal military reports.

His reference to non-Somalis follows his allegation that the Islamists are recruiting foreign Muslim fighters.

Somalia's Council of Islamic Courts has been under heavy fire since Sunday, when Ethiopia sent fighter jets across the border to help Somalia's internationally backed government push out the Islamists. Ethiopia bombed the country's two main airports and helped government forces capture several villages.

The Somali Government yesterday called on the Islamists to surrender and promised them amnesty if they lay down their weapons and stop opposing the government, spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said from Baidoa, the seat of the government.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said his forces have completed about half their mission. "As soon as we have accomplished our mission and about half of our mission is done, and the rest shouldn't take long we'll be out," Meles said.

Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a top leader of the Islamic group, said he asked his troops to withdraw from some areas. "The war is entering a new phase," he said. "We will fight Ethiopia for a long, long time and we expect the war to go everyplace."

Ahmed declined to explain his comments in greater detail, but some Islamic leaders have threatened a guerrilla war to include suicide bombings in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.

Skirmishes were continuing despite the retreat; a witness in Bur Haqaba said he heard explosions nearby after two Ethiopian jets flew overhead.

"I saw two helicopters, I heard the sounds of bombs at Lego village," said Mohamed Abdulle Siidi by telephone. The village is about 15 kilometres from Lego. The account could not be immediately confirmed.

Ismael Mohamoud Hurreh, a member of Somalia's transitional national government, said yesterday that "the story of the Islamic courts is coming to an end" and that the government will eventually take the capital, Mogadishu. He declined to give a timetable, however.

Source: China Daily