Thousands of Somalis chanting anti-Western slogans protested in Mogadishu on Friday against parliament voting to allow foreign peacekeepers in the country, a move opposed by the newly powerful Islamist militias.
Punching into the air, about 3,000 protesters including children and veiled women marched through trash-lined streets in a protest organised by the Islamic courts, shouting: "We don't want foreign troops."
Others waved banners in Arabic and English that read "America open your eyes" and "Democracy go to hell" in what organisers said was the people's response to Wednesday's parliamentary vote.
Militia loyal to Shariah courts wrested control of Mogadishu on June 5 from warlords widely believed to be backed by Washington, after a three-month battle that killed at least 350 people, mostly civilians.
Ironically, the warlords and Islamists shared one thing - a vehement refusal to allow foreign troops in to secure the interim government, as Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf has been requesting since his election in late 2004.
The government is too weak to enter Mogadishu, and has made its temporary home in the south-central town of Baidoa which the Islamists appear to have flanked with a rapid march from the Mogadishu on the coast to Baladwayne on the Ethiopian border.
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