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| Africa Horn |
| Somalia govt fighting al Qaeda: President Yusuf |
| 2008-03-07 |
| (Garowe Online) - SomaliaÂ’s interim President Abdullahi Yusuf has reiterated his position that al Qaeda terrorists are leading the insurgency to overthrow his Ethiopian-backed government in the capital, Mogadishu. Speaking with a BBC reporter who visited Somalia last week, President Yusuf said terrorists "trained in Afghanistan" and financed by Osama bin Laden are conducting active operations inside Somalia. The Somali leaderÂ’s interview came hours after American warships fired missiles into a southern town aimed at killing an al Qaeda-linked wanted fugitive. Yusuf has claimed for years that al Qaeda is active in parts of Somalia, namely in Mogadishu where the Islamic Courts Union took power in June 2006. Although SomaliaÂ’s Islamists repeatedly denied terror links, the U.S. and Ethiopian governments sided with YusufÂ’s claims and cooperated in the military blitzkrieg to oust the Islamists from Mogadishu later that year. But the Islamists vowed a long and bloody insurgency, which has now entered its 15th consecutive month, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians. Insiders in Mogadishu and other parts of the country say the insurgency includes Islamist guerrillas supported by the international Islamic movement. Insurgent groups such as al-Shabaab have repeatedly stated their ultimate goal of reestablishing Islamic Sharia law across Somalia. In September 2006, President Yusuf survived a suicide car bomb that killed his younger brother and a dozen others. His former Prime Minister, Prof. Ali Mohamed Gedi, survived three assassination attempts during his three-year tenure. But groups fighting the government also include clan warriors opposed to the imposition of an Ethiopian-backed, Darod-led government in Hawiye-dominated Mogadishu. The Hawiye and Darod clans have been vying for control of the countryÂ’s resources since the eruption of the Somali civil war in 1991. Ethiopian troops are deeply unpopular in Somalia where many see them as the perpetrators of war crimes and supporters of the country's hated warlords. The African Union, which has 2,000 peacekeepers in Mogadishu, has failed to bolster its peacekeeping forces to replace the despised Ethiopian army. |
| Posted by:Fred |