A key Somali Islamist leader on Tuesday called for jihad, or holy war, vowing that a bloody insurgency against the Ethiopian-backed government in Mogadishu would end only with the return of Islamic law.
”Our mission is clear. What we want is to free our country from Christian colonisers — by this I mean Ethiopia,” said Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, a radical Islamist leader who recently resurfaced in the Somali capital.
”At this point, jihad is all we need. There is no political process we can be involved in unless we get a government practising sharia [Islamic law],” the militant leader said by telephone.
Sheikh Mukhtar — also known as Abu Mansur since he trained in Afghanistan and fought alongside the Taliban there in the early 2000s –presented himself as ”a spokesman for the Islamic movement” in Mogadishu.
”Our aim is to liberate our country from the Christian invaders and those who assist them, and I assure you that the holy war against them will not stop until the Islamic flag is raised,” he added.
Sheikh Mukhtar was a deputy security chief for the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), an extremist militia that briefly controlled large parts of the country last year before being ousted by Ethiopian troops supporting the transitional government.
The militant was also a leader and spokesperson for the Shabab movement, officially the youth branch of the ICU, which effectively acted as the most radical military arm of the organisation.
Since Ethiopia wrested final control of Mogadishu from the Islamists in April, the seaside capital has been rocked by almost daily violence between insurgents and government forces.
The current insurgency blends remnants of the ICU and the Shabab movement, as well as various elements from clans and other movements opposed to the current interim government.
Sheikh Mukhtar is not a member of the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia, an Islamist-dominated opposition umbrella group formed last month in Eritrea aimed at ousting Ethiopian troops.
He rose to prominence in 1996 when he commanded militiamen fighting Ethiopian forces that had invaded Somalia’s south-western Gedo region.
He later played a key military role in defeating United States-backed warlords during the so-called ”Second battle of Mogadishu” in early 2006. — Sapa-AFP