Somalia’s top Islamist leader vowed on Saturday to wage a stronger insurgency in the capital, Mogadishu, until all Ethiopian troops withdraw from the war-shattered Horn of Africa nation.
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the chief of the executive arm of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), said Somalis must defend their nation against Ethiopian forces deployed in Mogadishu to bolster the feeble government.
”Our country was attacked by Ethiopia, who are trying to colonise Somalia,” Ahmed said in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, the base of the Somali government foes.
”We have the right to defend our country. We are compelled to attack Ethiopia. They will be pushed out from Somalia and we will take back our freedom by force,” he added.
”We have a right to live in peace and in freedom and a right to manage our affairs ourselves … Until we get that point, we will continue the fighting,” Ahmed said.
Somali government forces backed by Ethiopian troops earlier this year defeated Somalia’s Islamist militants, who briefly controlled much of the country’s south and central regions. But the Islamists’ successful bid to restore law and order were tainted by allegations that they harbour al-Qaeda extremists.
Since wresting back control of Mogadishu in April, insurgents have switched to guerrilla tactics, carrying out daily hit-and-run shootings, roadside bomb and grenade attacks against government targets.
The Islamists and elders from Mogadishu’s dominant Hawiye clan refused to participate in internationally backed peace talks in Mogadishu, which opened on July 15, marking a key setback to the latest efforts to normalise the paralysed nation.
Instead, the Islamists and other foes of Somalia’s weak President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed are planning on opening parallel 10-day peace talks in Asmara on September 1.
Although Ahmed urged the United Nations and Western powers to support the Islamist initiative, he renewed salvos against the United States, which backed Ethiopia in its moves to drive Islamists from Somalia.
”The US is a large government, but they are supporting Ethiopia, supporting the dictator [Ethiopian Prime Minister] Meles Zenawi, who is killing our people,” Ahmed said.
”Instead, we appeal to European countries, to the US, to the UN, to support us,” he added.
Ahmed, who is regarded as a moderate in the movement that Western intelligence has said has been infiltrated by al-Qaeda extremists, flatly rejected the claims.
”There are no al-Qaeda members in Somalia and we are not terrorists: we are simply Somalis,” he said.
Somalia, home to about 10-million people, disastrously collapsed after the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre paved the way for a bloody power scramble that has defied numerous efforts to restore peace. — AFP
