From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Fri Aug 07 2009 - 01:08:32 EDT
Somalia's Al-Shabaab denies link to terror plot in Australia
www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-06 22:48:18
MOGADISHU, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) -- The radical Islamist group of Al-Shabaab
in Somalia on Thursday denied any connection with a terror plot in the
southern Australian city of Melbourne.
"We have nothing to do with that and we believe it is meant to
blackmail the (detained) youths into spying for the enemies of Islam,"
Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Rageh, Spokesman for the Al-Shabaab told reporters
in Mogadishu.
Last week, Australian police arrested several men of Somali and
Lebanese descent after they were suspected of planning to carry out a
suicide attack on an army base in the southern city of Melbourne
following months of surveillance.
Al-Shabaab, which means "youth" in Arabic, is one of the main
insurgent group fighting Somali government forces and African Union
peacekeeping forces in Mogadishu.
The movement, which controls large swathes of territory in the south
and center of the war-ravaged Horn of Africa country, is accused of
having links with Al-Qaida and being behind most of the suicide attacks
against government forces and the AU peacekeepers.
Al-Shabaab wants to topple the Somali government and replace it with
an Islamic State, implementing a strict form of the Islamic Sharia law,
which it imposes in areas under its rule.
Meanwhile, Al-Shabaab condemned the meeting between Somali President
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
saying the meeting was meant to harm the Somali people rather than help
them.
"The U.S. want to use another tactic to harm the Muslim nation so
they have sent this woman representing the Pharaoh of today," an
Al-Shabaab spokesman told reporters.
President Ahmed and Clinton met Thursday in the Kenyan capital
Nairobi after attending a U.S.-Africa economic forum.
Editor: Mu Xuequan
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-08/06/content_11838812.htm
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