NAIROBI, Kenya -- Ethiopian forces backing Somalia's weak transitional government took control of Kismayo, the last stronghold of the country's Islamic movement, and on Monday chased the remnants of the Islamic militia along the Indian Ocean coast toward the Kenyan border about 100 miles to the south.
In the final stage of a dramatic power shift inside a fragile nation of great strategic importance to the United States, the Islamic fighters abandoned their heaviest weapons early Monday morning and took off for villages in the forest with Ethiopian and government troops pursuing key leaders, including three suspects in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
"Our forces have captured Kismayo," Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi told reporters in Mogadishu, where Ethiopian forces essentially installed his secular, internationally recognized government just days ago. "The warlord era in Somalia is now over."
Gedi has given fighters loyal to the Islamic movement, which was organized under an umbrella group called the Council of Islamic Courts, three days to disarm, and promised amnesty for those who do. Government officials said that in Kismayo, hundreds of fighters had turned over their weapons Monday and were returning to their clans.
With the most militiamen headed their way, Kenyan authorities on Monday tightened security along their 250-mile border with Somalia. Kenya has many Somali refugees who know the Islamic leaders, and analysts say it would be easy for them to blend into the population.
