Region | Somalia
Somali Islamists say will not observe peace deal
A powerful Somali Islamist group that boycotted UN-brokered peace talks said on Monday it would not respect a ceasefire reached over the weekend until all Ethiopian troops backing the government had left the country.
- Agencies
- Published: 19:07 October 27, 2008
Mogadishu: A powerful Somali Islamist group that boycotted UN-brokered peace talks said on Monday it would not respect a ceasefire reached over the weekend until all Ethiopian troops backing the government had left the country.
The hardline Islamist Shabaab faction, which launches attacks on government positions almost every day, said the agreement signed between the government and the more moderate but exiled Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) Islamist group was only a ploy to splinter the opposition.
Sunday's deal was reached in neighbouring Djibouti after the government agreed to an opposition demand to ensure the exit of Ethiopian troops, which joined Somali government forces to push Islamists out of Mogadishu in late 2006.
"Fighting will go on in Mogadishu and we shall not stop until all foreign troops leave our country," said Sh4ikh Muktar Robow Abu Mansoor, a spokesman for al Shabaab.
"The Djibouti conference is useless because it was meant only to divide the Islamists," he told a news conference in Mogadishu.
Under the ceasefire pact, Ethiopian troops should start re-locating from parts of Mogadishu and the garrison town of Baladwayne on November21. A "second phase" of withdrawal would be completed within three months, but the deal did not say by when all Ethiopian troops would have to have left the country.
The plan calls for a 10,000-strong security force jointly set up by the government and the opposition to fill the security vacuum left by the Ethiopian soldiers.
"Islamists fighters and government soldiers will never be put together and positioned at the bases that Ethiopian troops will leave," Mansoor said.
Addis Ababa said it backed the deal requiring its soldiers to leave the Horn of Africa country.
Share this article
Popular in News
News Editor's choice
-
Ajtebi's phenomenal assent
The former camel jockey was at the peak of his powers when upstaging Garret Gomez
-
US pushing for more aid to Philippines
Obama administration eyeing $667m security assistance package
-
Mohammad launches H1N1 campaign
Shaikh Mohammad was the first one to receive the H1N1 vaccine.
