From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Mon Sep 08 2008 - 22:03:06 EDT
Somalia: Kismayo admin. 'built by jihadis': Sheikh Hassan Turki
8 Sep 8, 2008 - 4:56:11 PM
KISMAYO, Somalia Sep 8 (Garowe Online) - A key rebel leader in southern
Somalia has publicly endorsed a new administration for the strategic
port city of Kismayo, saying the administration is "not based on clans."
Sheikh Hassan "Turki" Abdullahi Hersi, a key figure of al Shabaab, told
the BBC Somali Service during a Monday interview that fighting between
Islamist guerrillas and clan militias loyal to warlord Barre Hirale
"started by accident."
"A part of the jihadis started the war and we knew if we did not support
them, that Barre [Hirale] will kill them one by one," Sheikh Turki said,
adding: "Kismayo is now under Muslim control."
Sheikh Turki defended the new seven-member administration, which
disregarded clan sentiment and appointed as city mayor an Islamist
official from the Somaliland regions, in northwestern Somalia.
"I get telephone calls with people asking me 'why did you hand over
Kismayo to a man from Hargeisa' [Somaliland capital]," Sheikh Turki
said, while defending the new Islamist-appointed administration on
grounds that its "founded on Islam" and not the 4.5 clan-based,
power-sharing formula, which the country's Transitional Federal
Government (TFG) is based on.
According to Sheikh Turki, local clans in Kismayo "would fight among
each other" if the Islamists appointed an administration with regard to
clan interests.
He also addressed the dispute among members of the Alliance for the
Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), which broke into two wings after ARS
Chairman Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed inked a peace pact with the TFG in
June.
"I pray that the two Sheikhs [Sharif in Djibouti and Aweys in Eritrea]
repent to Allah and return...my desire is to become the elder of al
Shabaab jihadis," Sheikh Turki said.
"We will defend ourselves against Barre [Hirale] and [Somali President]
Abdullahi Yusuf and everyone and the Ethiopians and we will teach them a
lesson," he said, while promising to "continue the jihad."
In March, the U.S. government designated al Shabaab a terrorist
organization.
Meanwhile, there have been two fatal shootings inside Kismayo since
Sunday, including a local businessman who was shot and killed in public.
In both cases, the killers escaped but the Islamists' new information
secretary, Sheikh Hassan Yakub, pledged to find the killers.
Source: Garowe Online
Hassan Turki
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