Region | Somalia
Islamist military chief comes to light
The shadowy military commander of the Islamic movement that is advancing across southern Somalia has begun to go public, and is arousing concern among diplomats and counterterrorism experts who allege he is an extremist with links to Al Qaida.
- AP
- Published: 00:00 October 14, 2006
- Militiamen train Somali civilians in Mogadishu to handle weapons in preparation for a possible showdown with Ethiopia.
- Image Credit: AP
Nairobi: The shadowy military commander of the Islamic movement that is advancing across southern Somalia has begun to go public, and is arousing concern among diplomats and counterterrorism experts who allege he is an extremist with links to Al Qaida.
As the rebels seize town after town, Aden Hashi Ayro is increasingly taking a public role, and it may be a signal that radicals within the country's Islamic movement are gaining the strength to put their anti-Western, anti-modern stamp on Somalia.
Ayro, who is in his mid-30s, is said to have received Al Qaida training in Afghanistan. He has been linked by UN officials to the murders of 16 people, including BBC journalist Kate Peyton. Counterterrorism officials also believe he was involved in a plot, never carried out, to bring down an Ethiopian airliner.
He has never been photographed and only last month did he step from the shadows in Kismayo, Somalia, to address hundreds of his gunmen who had just seized the strategic seaport without firing a shot. An Associated Press reporter who was in the crowd of spectators described him as goateed and turbaned, with two Belgian-made pistols stuffed into his waistband.
In Kismayo, Ayro became the first official in the movement to acknowledge a long-rumoured connection with foreign fighters, saying: "Among our militia will be Somalis and foreigners." Journalists covering his speech said he had bodyguards who looked Arab, and were told others were from different African countries and from Central Asia.
US-based counterterrorism expert Peter Pham said moderates cannot compete because the hardliners control the guns. "What we have here is a dangerously radical movement," he says, and accuses the West of being in "an ostrich-like sense of denial." Ayro is also the courts' link man to Al Qaida, according to Pham, diplomats in the region, and UN investigators.
Share this article
Popular in News
News Editor's choice
-
Al Qaida returns to Manhattan
Trial in US federal court would be just the theatre Khalid Shaikh Mohammad wants
-
Obama's Tibet test
The US president's snub of the Dalai Lama could embolden China
-
What to expect at the Dubai Airshow
We preview what types of aircraft to expect at the Dubai Airshow
