,
Somalia's Ethiopian-backed government has said its troops would force the surrender of the last holdout of its Islamist foes, who rejected an offer of talks from Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi.
Meanwhile an explosion killed two people in north Mogadishu, raising fears of the guerrilla tactics the Islamists had threatened after they fled the capital last week.
Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aidid, a former Mogadishu warlord, urged Islamist fighters in the southern city of Kismayo to disarm and avoid more of the fighting that has killed hundreds, and possibly thousands, in the lawless African nation.
“We will surround the town but we will leave open (an opportunity) for dialogue and negotiations for them to disarm,” he told AFP on Sunday.
Gedi renewed his appeal for talks, but vowed to crackdown on the Islamists accused of ties with Al Qaeda.
“We are contacting them for dialogue. We have repeatedly asked them to come to Mogadishu to talk,” Gedi told reporters.
But Islamist commander Sheikh Mohamed Ibrahim Bilal told AFP, “This is something that will never happen … our country is under colonisation and we cannot accept any offer of negotiations as long as Ethiopians are in our territory.”
“This is not a time of peace … it is a time of liberation and we are going to liberate our country from the enemies,” Bilal said.
“Our joint forces are pursuing and chasing international terrorists. We will not stop until we have chased them completely from our country,” Gedi said, alleging that foreign fighters constituted 65 percent of the Islamist force.
Ethiopian and Somali troops, backed by tanks, began heading for Kismayo, 500 kilometres (315 miles) down the coast from Mogadishu, on Saturday.
Residents fled Jilib, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Kismayo, where officials said Islamist fighters had taken up position in readiness to defend the town.
“People are fleeing so that they can avoid violence. Women and children are on trucks leaving the town,” said Osmail Farah, a resident.
“I am also taking my children outside the town because we fear danger. War is imminent in this region,” Farah added.
“The Islamic fighters have already taken positions in the surrounding areas and they have vowed to defend the district,” Sheikh Abdi Dayow Abdi, a Islamist-appointed Jilib district commissioner, told AFP.
The overnight blast in Mogadishu's Yakshid district killed a woman instantly and fatally injured her 12-year-old daughter in a house near the former residence of a leader of the Islamic movement.
Nurto Said Bare, a local resident, said the explosion had apparently been caused by a device thrown into the house from outside.
Before their defeat, the Islamists, born out of the Sharia courts that sprang up in 1990s, had managed to restore some sort of order in Mogadishu, but raised resentment after they started imposing Islamic law, banning cinemas and flogging offenders.
In another development, Gedi Sunday held talks with members of parliament who had refused to join his government in the south central town of Baidoa, and said they had agreed to work with the government.
Meanwhile Eritrea, which has repeatedly denied claims that it deployed troops to support the Islamists, accused Addis Ababa of framing up evidence.
Addis Ababa is “seizing and duplicating the ID cards of Eritreans residing in Ethiopia and sending such cards to Somalia, with a view to backing up their baseless allegation about (the) so-called presence of Eritrean troops in Somalia,” the information ministry in Asmara said in a website statement.
The Ethiopian intervention has received tacit US support, with Washington arguing that Addis Ababa had legitimate security concerns about the possibility of Islamists with Al-Qaeda links gaining control of the country.
African and Arab nations have called for the Ethiopian troops to withdraw immediately, but the Somali government, which is UN-recognised but was powerless until Addis Ababa provided its backing, has insisted the troops will stay as long as they are needed.
Arab League-mediated peace talks collapsed in Khartoum last month, after the Islamists rejected meeting the government until Ethiopian troops pull out.
Addis Ababa claims it has killed thousands of opposing fighters and aid groups say hundreds have died on the battlefields, but the exact death toll remains unknown.
Somalia disintegrated into lawlessness after the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. It was carved up among clan warlords, some of whom now back the government, and defied all international bids to restore functioning institutions of state.
