From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Fri Jul 25 2008 - 15:59:05 EDT
AP Interview: Somali opposition leader won't rule out fighting UN
peacekeepers
Published: July 25, 2008
NAIROBI, Kenya: Somalia's hardline new opposition leader vowed Friday to
pacify his shattered country through Islamic law, warning U.N.
peacekeepers they will face attack if they deploy and support the
government.
Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, who was ousted from power in 2006 with tacit
support from the United States, is gaining influence again as a deadly
insurgency ruptures Somalia, killing thousands since 2007. He took over
the exiled opposition this week, pushing out a more moderate cleric who
held peace talks with the government last month.
"Fighting U.N. peacekeepers depends on how they behave in Somalia,"
Aweys told The Associated Press in an interview that touched on subjects
ranging from terrorism accusations - which he denies - to his four wives
and 22 children.
Nicole Thompson, a State Department spokeswoman, said the United States
does not consider Aweys, a designated terrorist under a United Nations
Security Council resolution, to be a legitimate representative of the
opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia.
"Aweys' self-proclamation of leadership over the ARS does not reflect
the sentiment, as we understand it, of other ARS members, nor does it
reflect the desire of the Somali people for peace and stability,"
Thompson said.
Aweys, however, is defiant toward the United States, which fears Somalia
could become a haven for al-Qaida. Aweys and a spokesman for the
movement have confirmed he was voted into power Tuesday. A communique
from the alliance, dated July 22 and obtained by the AP, also confirms
his leadership.
Speaking from the opposition base in Eritrea, Aweys said his fighters
will battle any U.N. force that supports the government or the Ethiopian
troops propping up Somalia's fragile administration.
"The issue is clear. If they side with the (government) and with
Ethiopians we will fight them," he said.
The U.N. Security Council has said it would consider deploying U.N.
peacekeepers to replace African Union troops, if there is improved
political reconciliation and security. The AU force is struggling,
however, and recently appealed for the U.N. to take over. The AU force
is authorized to have 8,000 soldiers but currently has only about 2,600.
The last U.N. peacekeeping force in Somalia included American troops who
arrived in 1992 and tried to arrest warlords and create a government.
That experiment in nation building ended in October 1993, when fighters
shot down a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and battled American troops,
leaving 18 servicemen dead.
"We don't want foreigners, definitely," Aweys said Friday. "We know
their harm."
Aweys, who sports the red, henna-stained beard of distinguished Somali
men, refused to say exactly how many fighters are backing him, but said
he is confident he can end Somalia's 17 years of chaos.
"I am married to four women and they don't fight," he said. "Don't you
think the man who can manage four wives can manage a government?"
Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991, when clan
warlords ousted longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on
each other. The current government was formed in 2004 with the help of
the United Nations but has failed to protect its citizens from violence
or the country's breathtaking poverty.
An Iraq-style insurgency, which Aweys promised after he was driven from
power, has contributed to a massive humanitarian emergency, with
millions dependent on aid.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, the United
States put Aweys on a terrorist watch list because he and an Islamic
group he founded - al-Itihaad - were believed to have had links to Osama
bin Laden while bin Laden was living in Sudan in the early 1990s.
"Even if I met him, is it a crime?" Aweys said Friday when asked if he
knew bin Laden.
He denied links to terror, however, saying: "The whole world killed us,
kicked us out just on the rumor that we are allied with al-Qaida. Where
is the justice? The world jumped to conclusions."
Aweys went into hiding after the 9/11 attacks and didn't re-emerge until
August 2005, when he helped found a radical Islamic militia that became
known as the Council of Islamic Courts.
The Islamic courts brought a semblance of stability, but terrified
residents with threats of public executions and floggings of criminals.
His group ruled the capital and much of southern Somalia for six months
in 2006 before powerful troops from neighboring Ethiopia arrived to push
them out.
The group then launched the insurgency that has killed thousands of
civilians and shattered a country that already was one of the most
violent and impoverished in the world. The Ethiopian troops - widely
resented in Somalia and seen as occupiers - have been accused of abusing
their power.
Meanwhile, the opposition went into exile in Eritrea, under the
leadership of a more moderate cleric, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed. On
Tuesday night, Aweys forced Ahmed out, denouncing his recent peace
agreement with the government.
Ahmed and the government had agreed to end months of violence and agreed
in principle to the eventual withdrawal of Ethiopian troops. The deal
has had no effect on the ground.
Aweys, meanwhile, has refused to talk to the government until Ethiopia
withdraws its troops from the country.
Ethiopia and the Somali government refused to comment specifically on
Aweys' re-emergence or his warnings.
Roughly half the area of the United States, the Horn of Africa is home
to about 165 million people in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya
and Djibouti. Corrupt governments, porous borders, widespread poverty
and discontented Muslim populations have created a region ripe for
Islamic fundamentalism.
Kenya, and Tanzania just to its south, have already been victims of
al-Qaida terrorism, with the bombings at the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi
and Dar es Salaam in 1998 and attacks on a hotel and an Israeli airliner
in Kenya in 2002.
The attacks emanated from Somalia.
In recent years, the United States backed a secret program to pay
Mogadishu's widely detested warlords to help track down those in Somalia
with links to terrorism. But the policy backfired when the Islamists
banded together under Aweys and ousted the warlords from the capital.
The United States now supports Somalia's ineffectual transitional
government.
Aweys, however, said only Islamic law can help Somalia.
"Somalis are Muslims," he said. "We have asked them and they want
Islamic rule."
___
AP Writers Malkhadir M. Muhumed in Nairobi and Anita Powell in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia, contributed to this report.
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