From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Wed May 13 2009 - 07:58:35 EDT
UN Somalia Envoy: Islamist Leader Aweys Attempting Coup Wednesday May
13rd, 2009 / 13h32
UN Somalia Envoy: Islamist Leader Aweys Attempting Coup Wednesday May
13rd, 2009 / 13h32
UN Somalia Envoy: Islamist Leader Aweys Attempting Coup
Wednesday May 13rd, 2009 / 13h32
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AFP)--The U.N.'s top envoy for Somalia blamed
Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys Wednesday for recent fighting in
Mogadishu and accused him of seeking to topple the country's government.
"Aweys came to take power and topple a legitimate regime," Ahmedou Ould
Abdallah told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting on Somalia at the
African Union's headquarters in Addis Ababa.
"The attacks of the past few days, all that has happened in Mogadishu
lately, it's an attempt to seize power by force, it's a coup attempt," he
said.
Clashes that started last week between forces loyal to the Transitional
Federal Government of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and radical forces
including members of the Shebab group have left some 100 people dead.
Aweys and Sharif were two of the Islamist leaders who took over most of
Somalia in 2006 before being ousted by an Ethiopian invasion in support of
the TFG. Sharif eventually joined the U.N.-sponsored reconc
iliation process based in Djibouti and was elected Somalia's president in
January, days after Ethiopia completed its military pullout.
Aweys has always rejected the Djibouti process and returned from exile in
Eritrea last month, vowing he would continue to oppose the government so
long as African Union peacekeepers remained on Somali soil.
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