From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Fri Apr 24 2009 - 20:45:03 EDT
Sheikh Aweys returns to Somalia to 'reconcile Islamist factions'
23 Apr 23, 2009 - 10:58:56 PM
MOGADISHU, Somalia Apr 23 (Garowe Online) - The leading opposition
figure in Somalia returned to the country on Thursday after spending
more than two years exiled in Eritrea, Radio Garowe reports.
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the former legislative head of the Islamic
Courts Union (ICU), arrived on a private plane at No.50 airstrip in
Lower Shabelle region.
He was accompanied by a seven-member delegation from the Alliance for
the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), an Islamist-led opposition group
that divided into two camps months before ex-ICU executive chief Sheikh
Sharif Ahmed became President of Somalia.
"I will meet with anyone concerned about Somalia and my trip [to
Somalia] is not influenced by foreign countries," Sheikh Aweys told
Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV, although he did not specify whether he plans
to meet with President Sheikh Sharif.
Sheikh Ismail Haji Addow, a senior member of ARS-Eritrea, told reporters
that Sheikh Aweys would meet with meet with different sections of
society in Mogadishu to promote reconciliation among Islamist factions.
"We [ARS-Eritrea] have moved back to Mogadishu, but we will keep an
office in Eritrea," Sheikh Addow said, while underscoring that Sheikh
Aweys' main task would be to reconcile factions within the muqawama, or
the resistance movement that became popular during the Ethiopian army's
two-year intervention in south-central Somalia.
Earlier this month, Sheikh Aweys briefly visited the Sudan where media
reports anticipated that he would meet with a delegation from President
Sheikh Sharif's government.
But a source at the Somali Embassy in Khartoum said Sheikh Aweys refused
to meet with members of the interim government, with ARS-Eritrea
official Gen. Jama Mohamed Ghalib publicly claiming that the sticking
point remained the presence of African Union peacekeepers (AMISOM) in
Mogadishu.
Sheikh Aweys fled Mogadishu in Jan. 2007 as Ethiopian troops backing
then-Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf's interim government entered the
capital and dislodged the ICU from power.
The ICU fractured into different factions and began a bloody guerrilla
war, known locally as the muqawama.
Some ICU factions later joined the Somali government, but the hardliners
like Al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam - to which Sheikh Aweys and the
ARS-Eritrea faction is a member - have rejected to recognize the
government.
In recent days, two ICU militia commanders have been gunned down in
Mogadishu in a fashion similar to the assassinations of government
officials during the Ethiopian army's intervention.
Source: Garowe Online
http://www.garoweonline.com/artman2/publish/Somalia_27/Sheikh_Aweys_retu
rns_to_Somalia_to_reconcile_Islamist_factions.shtml
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