From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Mon Oct 27 2008 - 12:28:16 EST
Somali Islamists say will not observe peace deal
Mon 27 Oct 2008, 14:56 GMT
(Recasts with Islamists' reaction)
By Abdi Sheikh
MOGADISHU, Oct 27 (Reuters) - A powerful Somali Islamist group that boycotted U.N.-brokered peace talks said on Monday it would not respect a ceasefire reached over the weekend until all Ethiopian troops backing the government had left the country.
The hardline Islamist Shabaab faction, which launches attacks on government positions almost every day, said the agreement signed between the government and the more moderate but exiled Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) Islamist group was only a ploy to splinter the opposition.
Sunday's deal was reached in neighbouring Djibouti after the government agreed to an opposition demand to ensure the exit of Ethiopian troops, which joined Somali government forces to push Islamists out of Mogadishu in late 2006.
"Fighting will go on in Mogadishu and we shall not stop until all foreign troops leave our country," said Sheikh Muktar Robow Abu Mansoor, a spokesman for al Shabaab.
"The Djibouti conference is useless because it was meant only to divide the Islamists," he told a news conference in Mogadishu.
Under the ceasefire pact, Ethiopian troops should start re-locating from parts of Mogadishu and the garrison town of Baladwayne on Nov. 21. A "second phase" of withdrawal would be completed within three months, but the deal did not say by when all Ethiopian troops would have to have left the country.
The plan calls for a 10,000-strong security force jointly set up by the government and the opposition to fill the security vacuum left by the Ethiopian soldiers.
"Islamists fighters and government soldiers will never be put together and positioned at the bases that Ethiopian troops will leave," Mansoor said.
Addis Ababa said it backed the deal requiring its soldiers to leave the Horn of Africa country.
"The agreement reached in Djibouti, between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS), is in line with our policy of orderly withdrawal," foreign ministry spokesman Wahade Belay said.
"Ethiopia will implement the decisions reached by the two parties in Djibouti on Sunday."
Ethiopian troops helped Somali government forces expel Islamists from the capital in 2006, ending their six-month rule of most of the south. But Islamist fighters regrouped to launch an insurgency from early 2007 that has killed at least 10,000 civilians and displaced about 1 million people.
As Somali politicians arrived in Nairobi on Monday ahead of a meeting of the east African inter-governmental bloc IGAD, regional leaders were expected to press the Somali government to allow some power-sharing with opposition leaders.
"Whether of moderate views or no views, we want all of them to be part-and-parcel of the leadership of the country because divided they won't get anywhere," Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula said ahead of the IGAD summit.
Somalia has suffered 17 years of civil conflict since warlords toppled a military dictator. (Additional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa and Humphrey Malalo in Nairobi; Editing by Caroline Drees)
© Reuters 2008. All Rights Reserved.
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----