From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Fri May 22 2009 - 16:46:09 EDT
INTERVIEW-Somali insurgent leader says Eritrea supports fight 22 May
2009 20:00:11 GMT
* Aweys says war in Somali is obligation for Muslims
* Some Arabs have joined the insurgent ranks
* "We shall defeat the government soon, God willing."
By Abdi Guled
MOGADISHU, May 22 (Reuters) - An influential Somali insurgent leader
said on Friday Eritrea supported the rebel fight against the government
in a holy war that was as much an obligation for Muslims as prayer.
Speaking in his office in northern Mogadishu, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys
said a few Arab fighters had joined the rebellion, which is battling to
overthrow Somalia's new government and President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed.
Heavy fighting on Friday in the capital killed at least 45 people and
wounded 182, the highest daily death toll in more than two weeks of
intense battles, after government forces launched a dawn offensive on
Islamist strongholds.[ID:nLM061305]
"Eritrea supports us and Ethiopia is our enemy -- we once helped both
countries but Ethiopia did not reward us," Aweys, dressed in a dark
suit, told Reuters in an interview.
Eritrea has been blamed for supplying the hardline Islamist insurgents
with weapons -- a charge it has repeatedly denied -- and the United
Nations says hundreds of foreign fighters have joined rebel ranks in
recent months.
"There may be two or three Arabs who were moved by Islam to fight
alongside us. But there is no large number of foreign Mujahideen in
Mogadishu. We and the Arabs are all Muslims -- so we are Arabs," he
said.
"We are not fighting for positions, but for Islam. It is agreed upon
within Islam that Christians and those they support are the same -- so
war is incumbent upon us, like prayer."
The insurgents want to rid the Horn of Africa nation of African Union
peackeepers, impose a strict version of sharia law and overthrow an
administration they see as Western stooges.
"Somalia has no government we recognise," said Aweys. "We should not be
deceived by Westerners like Sharif."
"GOD WILL GRANT US VICTORY"
Neighbouring states and Western security forces fear Somalia, which has
been mired in civil war for 18 years, could become a haven for militants
linked to al Qaeda.
Mindful of disastrous U.S.-U.N. intervention in the early 1990s, which
collapsed after the "Black Hawk Down" killing of 18 American soldiers,
Western powers are unlikely to intervene.
Aweys and Ahmed together ran Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia in
late 2006 as leaders of the Islamic Courts Union before Ethiopian troops
invaded and drove them from power.
The two Islamists -- Aweys was always considered the more hardline --
went into exile in Eritrea and formed the opposition Alliance for the
Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) which aimed to oust the Western-backed
government and its Ethiopian backers.
But Ahmed joined a U.N.-hosted peace process in neighbouring Djibouti
last year and was elected president by an expanded parliament including
ARS members in January. Parliament has since voted to introduce sharia
law throughout the country.
Aweys, who is on U.N. and U.S. terrorism lists for alleged links to al
Qaeda, returned to Somalia from Eritrea in April. [ID:nL1367419] Envoys
from Ahmed and clan elders have tried to persuade him to reconcile with
the president, but failed.
"Palestine, Afghanistan and Eritrea resisted war and difficulties for
more than three decades," he said.
"We shall defeat the government soon, God willing. Let the injured ones
and those who lost their brothers be patient -- we are left with little
time -- and then God will grant us victory," Aweys said with a chuckle.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LM978588.htm
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----