Thousands of angry Somali Muslims on Friday denounced the United States and a US-backed warlord alliance fighting Islamic militia in the lawless capital, Mogadishu, vowing to destroy their opponents.
Chanting anti-US slogans and comparing President George Bush to a Nazi, about 5Â 000 Muslims gathered in southern Mogadishu and pledged to fight to the death against the alliance as fierce fighting raged north of the city.
Surrounded by heavily armed Islamist militiamen, the throng cheered as clerics accused Washington of financing a “genocide” in Somalia by bankrolling the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism (ARPCT).
“The US is wrongfully supporting the warlords by funding them in this war,” said Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Hamad, chairperson of the coalition of Mogadishu’s 11 Islamic courts.
“The US actions are contrary to international law and against the will of the Somali people,” he told the crowd, which assembled after Friday prayers.
“We will fight and die for Somalia and Islam,” said Sheikh Mohamoud Sheik Ibrahim, a senior cleric in the coalition of Sharia courts accused by the US and the alliance of harbouring terrorists.
“We will die for the sake of Allah and we will emerge victorious in our war against the US proxies here,” he said. “We will never be ruled by US-paid mercenaries.”
He dismissed Bush as a modern-day “Nazi” and “pharaoh”, as men, women and children clad in traditional Islamic dress waved placards reading “Down with United States” and “No infidels in Mogadishu”.
“The Nazis attempted to rule the world, they failed,” Ibrahim said. “The Egyptian pharaohs took the same course and they failed. This is the same path George W Bush is taking and we can see his disgraceful end.”
The rally took place as new fighting erupted between the alliance and Islamic gunmen north of Mogadishu, killing 11 people and bringing the death toll from three months of battles to 327, with more than 1Â 500 wounded.
The ARPCT was set up in February with US support to curb the growing influence of Mogadishu’s Islamic courts and track down extremists and foreign fighters, including al-Qaeda members, they are allegedly harbouring.
The courts, which have declared a holy war against the alliance, deny the accusations and claim the warlords are fighting for the “enemy of Islam”.
Somalia has been without a functioning central authority since 1991 and its largely powerless transitional government has blamed both the alliance and the US for the fighting.
The US denies responsibility for the clashes although it has refused to confirm or deny its support for the ARPCT.
But US officials and informed Somali sources have told Agence France-Presse that Washington has given money to the ARPCT, one of several groups it is working with to curb what it says is a growing threat from radical Islamists in Somalia. — AFP