From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Wed Jul 01 2009 - 06:15:46 EDT
'It's time we attacked Ethiopia'
July 01 2009 at 10:18AM
By Mohamed Ahmed
Mogadishu - Somalia's Islamist rebels threatened on Tuesday to attack
Ethiopia after receiving repeated witness reports that Ethiopian troops were
back in the country they withdrew from in January.
Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in 2006 to oust an Islamist movement from
the capital in which new President Sheik Sharif Ahmed played a role. That
sparked an Islamist insurgency which is still raging despite their
withdrawal.
"I'm telling the people it's time we attacked Ethiopia, who are our
Christian neighbours," Sheikh Abdiqani Mohamed Yusuf said on a radio station
controlled by the al-Shabab rebels in the southern port of Kismayu.
"We have to invade their country, as they did our country. This is our best
chance. The people should be ready to take part in jihad," he said.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said last week suicide attacks in
Ethiopia by Somali Islamist rebels were a threat he "didn't expect to go
away any time soon".
The Ethiopian government has denied witnesses' claims that heavily armed
columns of Ethiopian troops have crossed the border and are in several parts
of Somalia.
President Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, fled into exile after the Ethiopian
intervention but joined a peace process last year and was elected in
January. His government is battling hardline insurgents who were once allies
in the Islamist movement.
Addis Ababa has said it supports the new government, but is wary of the
hardline Islamists, who are seen as a proxy for al-Qaeda, because they
control large areas of Somalia and have threatened to destabilise Ethiopia
and Kenya.
With reports of foreign jihadists streaming into Somalia, Western security
services are worried al-Qaeda may get a grip on the failed state, which has
been without central government for 18 years.
Violence from the Islamist-led insurgency has worsened this month, with a
minister, the Mogadishu police chief, and a legislator killed.
Al-Shabab wants to impose a strict version of sharia law, at odds with a
more moderate version followed by most Somalis.
Al-Shabab cut a hand and a foot off each of four thieves in Mogadishu last
week and paraded the limbs in the streets.
On Tuesday the hardline insurgents beheaded two residents and shot dead a
clan chief in Wajid district of Bakool region, which borders Ethiopia,
witnesses said.
Another man was beheaded in the region on Monday.
The government, which controls little but a few blocks of the capital, has
declared a state of emergency and appealed to neighbouring countries for
military assistance.
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----