Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed arrived on Saturday in Mogadishu’s western township of Afgoye a day after his prime minister entered the capital, abandoned by its Islamists rulers who vowed however to continue their fight.
As Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi mulled relocating to the capital, Islamist senior leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed upped belligerent rhetoric, calling on Somalis to join in the fight against Ethiopian troops which are backing the weak interim government and drove the Islamists from the capital.
”I’m not going today,” Yusuf told reporters in Afgoye, about 20km west of the capital where he was met by the prime minister.
In the southern town of Kismayo, to where the Islamist leaders have since relocated, Ahmed said they were ready to fight the Ethiopian troops who forced them from several of their strongholds after days of withering attacks backed by air strikes.
”I want to tell you that the Islamic courts are still alive and ready to fight against the enemy of Allah,” Ahmed told residents of Kismayo.
”We left Mogadishu in order to prevent bloodshed in the capital, but that does not mean we lost the holy war against our enemy,” he added.
The Islamists, which had controlled Mogadishu since June when they routed a United States-backed warlord alliance that lawlessly ruled the city, left on Thursday when Ethiopia-backed government forces advanced to the coastal city.
”I call on all Somali people to stand up with the Islamic courts and fight against the Ethiopian invaders,” Ahmed said.
”There are two options in the country and we have to choose one. Do we need to live as a colony or [do] we prefer freedom? I think freedom is the better [choice]. So we must fight for the religion until none of us is left,” he added.
Mogadishu meanwhile was calm as this Muslim nation prepared to celebrate Saturday’s start of the four-day day holy feast of Eid al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice.
Yusuf flew in from Baidoa, seat of the country’s weak transition government about 250km north-west of the capital, on board an Ethiopian military helicopter that set down at a military base on the outskirts of Afgoye.
The two leaders were reported to be in a meeting inside the aircraft, which was surrouned by soldiers.
On Friday, the US called on the Somali government to open a dialogue with the leaders of Islamist tribes, saying ”there is no military solution” in the lawless nation that has lacked effective central authority since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. – AFP
