Somali Islamists flee toward Kenya and to the hills

And it urged Kenya to close its border and arrest any Islamists who made it across. A Kenyan police chief said several suspected fighters from Somalia were arrested on the frontier on Sunday and were being questioned. He gave no more details.

The long and porous border is tough to patrol, with ethnic Somalis populating the Kenyan side and nomads crossing easily.

U.S. warships from its Djibouti-based counterterrorism Joint Task Force were also said to be patrolling the sea off Somalia to stop SICC leaders or foreign militant supporters escaping.

BIG SILENCE

Diplomats said Ethiopia has almost certainly received tacit U.S. support for its intervention. Their forces have provided an unbeatable combination of air power, artillery and tank support which has quickly routed the Islamists.

Residents north of Kismayu said mortar and rocket battles between the two sides stopped just before midnight. "There was a big silence. Then the Islamic Courts just left," one local said.

Ethiopian and government forces marched into the port early on Monday after clearing mines left by Islamists on the road.

Somalia's ambassador to Ethiopia, Abdikarin Farah said Ethiopian forces would stay as long as they were needed, and repeated the call for peacekeepers.

"We do not need a vacuum to be created," he said. "If the African Union and international community want Ethiopian troops to withdraw, they must deploy without delay."

Some Kismayu residents took advantage of the disorder to loot the Islamist arsenal.

"I came to see if I can get anything to sell," said local Mohamed Amin, one of dozens carrying off weapons.

Somalia's defense minister, Col. Abdikadir Adan Shire, also known as Barre Hiraale, said he was overjoyed.

"I am happy to return after a short absence," he told Reuters as he rolled into Kismayu in a military convoy.

While Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the Somali government's President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi will be delighted with the Islamists' flight, political analysts say the conflict may be far from over.

The Islamists, who had swollen their ranks with foreign Muslim fighters, may now concentrate on an Iraqi-style insurgency against a government they see as illegitimate and propped up by a hated and Christian-led foreign power.

Born out of sharia courts operating in Mogadishu, the Islamists chased U.S.-backed warlords from the capital in June.

The SICC brought a semblance of order for the first time in nearly 16 years, but some of their hardline moves -- like shutting cinemas and holding public executions -- angered Somalis, traditionally moderate Muslims.

Both Addis Ababa and Washington say the SICC is a dangerous Taliban-like movement linked to al Qaeda, an accusation the movement says was trumped up to justify foreign intervention.

(Additional reporting by Bryson Hull and Guled Mohamed in Mogadishu; Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa; Andrew Cawthorne and David Mageria in Nairobi; Noor Ali in Garissa)