A senior Somali Islamist leader, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, on Tuesday rejected a three-month truce reached between Mogadishu and its main political foes at United Nations-sponsored peace talks in Djibouti a day earlier.
“I do not believe that the outcome of this conference will have any impact on the resistance in Somalia. We shall continue fighting until we liberate our country from the enemies of Allah,” Aweys told Mogadishu-based Shabelle radio.
“The aim of the meeting was to derail the holy war in the country,” added Aweys, a hard-line cleric designated a terrorist by the United States for suspected links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.
Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein and Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) chief Sheikh Sharif Ahmed signed the accord late on Monday.
Aweys is a member of the ARS, an opposition umbrella group dominated by Islamists and based in the Eritrean capital, Asmara.
While some Islamist leaders and influential clan leaders joined the talks, Aweys and other hard-line Islamists stayed away, saying they would not participate unless Ethiopian troops backing government forces pulled out of Somalia.
They also insisted the conference was biased.
According to the truce, Ethiopian troops would withdraw after the UN deploys peacekeepers from countries friendly to Somalia — excluding neighbouring states — within 120 days after the armistice takes effect.
On May 15, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution opening the way for a gradual return of UN staff to Somalia and possibly resulting in the deployment of peacekeepers there, but did not set a timetable.
But Aweys said the new truce did not set a deadline for the pull-out of Ethiopian troops, who deployed at the end of 2006 and ousted Islamists from south and central Somalia.
“The agreement does not offer a timetable of the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces. It is not clear when they will leave,” Aweys added.
The Islamists have waged a guerrilla war since then, which according to international rights groups and aid agencies, has left at least 6 000 civilians dead.
The country has been plagued by an uninterrupted civil war since the 1991 overthrow of president Mohamed Siad Barre. A string of previous peace initiatives and truce deals have failed. — AFP