MOGADISHU, Somalia - Islamic insurgents took over police stations in the Somali capital Saturday as Ethiopian troops pulled out, raising fears the Ethiopians' departure will set off a violent scramble for control over the country, witnesses said.
Ethiopia has been propping up Somalia's weak government for two years, but vowed to leave by the end of 2008. Officials have since declined to give an exact date because amid concerns of a power vacuum. The thousands of Ethiopian troops are being pulled out in stages.
Many fear the pullout -- and last month's resignation of Somalia's president -- will cause lawmakers and various Islamic militant groups to jockey for power.
The government controls only Baidoa, the seat of Parliament, and pockets of the capital, Mogadishu.
Abdirahim Issa Adow, a spokesman for one wing of the insurgency, said he deployed troops to three of Mogadishu's 14 police stations to ensure the capital does not erupt in violence.
"We have to show commitment to do our part in security, we want to help people feel secure," Adow told The Associated Press.
His Union of Islamic Courts is not allied to the most powerful insurgent group, al-Shabab.
The Ethiopians were called on in 2006 to prop up the U.N.-backed government and rout Islamic militants who had taken over most of the country.
Initially, the superior firepower worked -- the Islamists were driven from power. But they quickly regrouped and launched an insurgency that continues today.
Abdullahi Yusuf resigned as president in December, saying he had lost control of the country to Islamic insurgents and could no longer fulfill his duties after four years in office.
Many Somalis have seen the Ethiopians as occupiers, and the insurgents have used their presence as a rallying cry to gain recruits -- even as the militants' strict form of Islam terrified people into submission.
For two decades, Somalia has been beset by anarchy, violence and an insurgency that has killed thousands of civilians and sent hundreds of thousands fleeing.
The most powerful insurgent group, al-Shabab, has taken control of vast amounts of new territory in recent months. Washington accuses al-Shabab of harboring the al-Qaida-linked terrorists who blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Many of the insurgency's senior figures are Islamic radicals; some are on the U.S. State Department's list of wanted terrorists.
