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Somali Warlords Fled to US Boat: JIC
MOGADISHU — Two defeated Somali warlords have fled from Mogadishu to a waiting US ship, while a third publicly renounced his opposition to the capital's new ruling Joint Islamic Courts (JIC), court sources said on Saturday, June17 .
Bashir Raghe and Muse Sudi Yalahow took a boat early in the morning to a US military vessel which approached the Somali coast, while Omar Finnish told local media that he had apologized for his opposition to the courts, a senior aide to the courts' leadership told Reuters.
"Bashir Raghe and Muse Sudi took a boat and they were picked up by the US. They said they would be back in a few days but everybody thinks they will seek asylum," said the aide, Abdulrahman Ali Osman.
"Everybody is running to their houses to take their guns. Bashir Raghe's house is being looted."
There was no independent confirmation immediately available.
Since February, the JIC has led militias in a series of battles against the US-backed warlords, who ruled Mogadishu and parts of Somalia since the ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre in1991 .
The courts won decisively in fighting that claimed 350 lives. Experts say the courts also won support by providing a semblance of security and justice in one of the world's most dangerous cities.
But they did not stop with the coastal capital, and swiftly moved inland to secure critical towns almost to the Ethiopian border, giving them newfound power and encroaching on the weak interim government's seat in Baidoa.
US government officials and experts have said that secret funding by Washington's CIA for the warlord Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) has backfired, empowering the same groups the Bush administration has sought to marginalize.
Public Uprising
JIC leaders invited foreign journalists Friday night, June16 , to counter accusations from their vanquished rivals that they supported Al-Qaeda and intended to rule with an iron fist, noting that the warlords were defeated by a public uprising.
"We have no intention of creating something on our own. We want to concentrate on bringing stability and security," JIC Deputy Chairman Sheikh Abdulkadir Ali Omar told foreign journalists in the Somali capital at the courts' invitation.
"Then we are ready for dialogue and discussion in the future. We are not here to form our own government," Omar said. "There was a total uprising by the whole grassroots of Mogadishu," Omar said.
The courts again denied there were any foreign terrorists or extremists in their midst, which is the reason the warlords gave for fighting them — in what many say was a ploy to obtain the US counterterrorism funding they are widely believed to have received.
"If you can find a terrorist, let us know. If we find one we are very much prepared to hand him over," Omar said. "There are no foreign terrorists in Mogadishu."
The JIC's military progress prompted the interim government to start negotiations, but the courts said a parliamentary vote last Wednesday to allow troops into the country would scuttle the talks.
More
http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-06/17/01.shtml
"Bashir Raghe and Muse Sudi took a boat and they were picked up by the US. They said they would be back in a few days but everybody thinks they will seek asylum," said the aide, Abdulrahman Ali Osman.
"Everybody is running to their houses to take their guns. Bashir Raghe's house is being looted."
There was no independent confirmation immediately available.
Since February, the JIC has led militias in a series of battles against the US-backed warlords, who ruled Mogadishu and parts of Somalia since the ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre in1991 .
The courts won decisively in fighting that claimed 350 lives. Experts say the courts also won support by providing a semblance of security and justice in one of the world's most dangerous cities.
But they did not stop with the coastal capital, and swiftly moved inland to secure critical towns almost to the Ethiopian border, giving them newfound power and encroaching on the weak interim government's seat in Baidoa.
US government officials and experts have said that secret funding by Washington's CIA for the warlord Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) has backfired, empowering the same groups the Bush administration has sought to marginalize.
Public Uprising
JIC leaders invited foreign journalists Friday night, June16 , to counter accusations from their vanquished rivals that they supported Al-Qaeda and intended to rule with an iron fist, noting that the warlords were defeated by a public uprising.
"We have no intention of creating something on our own. We want to concentrate on bringing stability and security," JIC Deputy Chairman Sheikh Abdulkadir Ali Omar told foreign journalists in the Somali capital at the courts' invitation.
"Then we are ready for dialogue and discussion in the future. We are not here to form our own government," Omar said. "There was a total uprising by the whole grassroots of Mogadishu," Omar said.
The courts again denied there were any foreign terrorists or extremists in their midst, which is the reason the warlords gave for fighting them — in what many say was a ploy to obtain the US counterterrorism funding they are widely believed to have received.
"If you can find a terrorist, let us know. If we find one we are very much prepared to hand him over," Omar said. "There are no foreign terrorists in Mogadishu."
The JIC's military progress prompted the interim government to start negotiations, but the courts said a parliamentary vote last Wednesday to allow troops into the country would scuttle the talks.
More
http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-06/17/01.shtml
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Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys - who is on Washington's list of terrorists with alleged links to al-Qaeda - will head an 88-strong legislative council.
A new, eight-member executive committee will be chaired by a more moderate figure, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
Discussions on the new structure are still under way in the capital.
Until now Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was regarded as leader of the Union of Islamic courts, the militia which wrested control of Mogadishu from warlords two weeks ago.
Sharia
Sheikh Aweys, a prominent cleric, is seen as more radical. He previously headed an armed group, al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, which the US said had links with al-Qaeda.
The network of 11 Islamic courts has been set up in recent years in Mogadishu, funded by businessmen in an attempt to re-establish law and order.
The courts' stated goal is to restore a system of Sharia law and put an end to impunity and fighting.
An interim government based in Baidoa, 200km (125 miles) north of the capital, Mogadishu, has been largely ineffective.
A Somali link has been assumed in al-Qaeda-linked attacks in East Africa - including the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2002 attacks on Israeli tourists in Kenya.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/5113868.stm
The latest clashes, last week and over the weekend, were some of the most violent in Mogadishu since the end of the American intervention in 1994, and left 150 dead and hundreds more wounded. Leaders of the interim government blamed U.S. support of the militias for provoking the clashes.
U.S. officials have declined to directly address on the record the question of backing Somali warlords, who have styled themselves as a counterterrorism coalition in an open bid for American support. Speaking to reporters recently, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States would "work with responsible individuals . . . in fighting terror. It's a real concern of ours -- terror taking root in the Horn of Africa. We don't want to see another safe haven for terrorists created. Our interest is purely in seeing Somalia achieve a better day."
U.S. officials have long feared that Somalia, which has had no effective government since 1991, is a desirable place for al-Qaeda members to hide and plan attacks. The country is strategically located on the Horn of Africa, which is only a boat ride away from Yemen and a longtime gateway to Africa from the Middle East. No visas are needed to enter Somalia, there is no police force and no effective central authority.
The country has a weak transitional government operating largely out of neighboring Kenya and the southern city of Baidoa. Most of Somalia is in anarchy, ruled by a patchwork of competing warlords; the capital is too unsafe for even Somalia's acting prime minister to visit.
Leaders of the transitional government said they have warned U.S. officials that working with the warlords is shortsighted and dangerous.
"We would prefer that the U.S. work with the transitional government and not with criminals," the prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, said in an interview. "This is a dangerous game. Somalia is not a stable place and we want the U.S. in Somalia. But in a more constructive way. Clearly we have a common objective to stabilize Somalia, but the U.S. is using the wrong channels."
Many of the warlords have their own agendas, Somali officials said, and some reportedly fought against the United States in 1993 during street battles that culminated in an attack that downed two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters and left 18 Army Rangers dead.
"The U.S. government funded the warlords in the recent battle in Mogadishu, there is no doubt about that," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari told journalists by telephone from Baidoa. "This cooperation . . . only fuels further civil war."
U.S. officials have refused repeated requests to provide details about the nature and extent of their support for the coalition of warlords, which calls itself the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism in what some Somalis say is a marketing ploy to get U.S. support.
But some U.S. officials, who declined to be identified by name because of the sensitivity of the issue, have said they are generally talking to these leaders to prevent people with suspected ties to al-Qaeda from being given safe haven in the lawless country.
"There are complicated issues in Somalia in that the government does not control Mogadishu and it has the potential for becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda and like-minded terrorists," said one senior administration official in Washington. "We've got very clear interests in trying to ensure that al-Qaeda members are not using it to hide and to plan attacks." He said it was "a very difficult issue" trying to show support for the fledgling interim government while also working to prevent Somalia from becoming an al-Qaeda base.
A senior U.S. intelligence official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was a "Hobbesian" situation -- that the transitional government operating from Kenya was in its "fifteenth iteration" and that it, too, was a "collection of warlords" that played both sides of the fence. The official said that it presented a classic "enemy of our enemy" situation.
The source said Somalia was "not an al-Qaeda safe haven" yet, adding, "There are some there, but it's so dysfunctional." U.S. officials specifically believe that a small number of al-Qaeda operatives who were involved in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania are now residing in Somalia.
More
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/16/AR2006051601625_pf.html