Somalia’s insurgent Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys on Tuesday called on pirates to immediately release a giant Saudi oil tanker and other foreign vessels being held in Somali waters.
“We are calling for the immediate release of all international vessels under the command of Somali pirates, who are undermining international peace and trade,” Aweys said.
Aweys, the leader of the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia, an umbrella opposition group, said Somalia’s pirates would have been eliminated if Somalia was still under the control of his Islamist group.
“We are the only force that could eliminate piracy in the Somalia waters but the world rejected to give us the opportunity to rule Somalia, despite the will of the vast majority of the people of Somalia.
“If we are given the opportunity to fight piracy and general lawlessness we can do that comfortably. Piracy is part of lawlessness and during our months of Islamic leadership pirates were underground,” he said.
His Islamic Courts Union ruled most of south and central Somalia for six months in 2006 before being ousted by Ethiopian forces who intervened to prop up its neighbour’s weak central government.
But he ruled out any mediation effort on the part of his organisation.
“As a leader of a freedom-fighter organisation, I personally can’t talk to gangs and mediate the release of the ships in the Gulf of Aden,” he said.
Aweys is an influential cleric accused of ties to al-Qaeda and designated a terrorist by Washington. – AFP