Somali Islamists tell president to resign

  1. Posted on Wednesday 1 September 2010 - 09:30
    Muhyadin
    Muhyadin Ahmed Roble, AfricaNews reporter in Nairobi, Kenya
    Islamist rebel militias asked Somali president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed to step down as he had failed establishing order in the country. "President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed ought to leave. He has nothing for the people except a call for more foreign troops that massacre Somalis," Hassan Dahir Aweys, leader of Hisbul Islam, told reporters.
    sherif ahmed
    The leader who has led a three-year insurgency against government urged Somalia's Muslims to unite and join the war.

    "I urge Islamists to unite. Areas under the control of Islamists are peaceful. They are the good Muslims who can rule the country," Aweys said on Tuesday evening.

    A former army colonel Hassan Dahir Aweys is political figure who was the head of the 90-member shura council of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) of Somalia in 2006. And he was also a very close friend to the current president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed before electing Sharif as Somalia president in Djibouti.

    Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was appointed in 2009 and seen as Somalia’s best chance in two decades of war but he has failed to expand his authority which remains only a few blocks in the capital.

    Islamist rebels control much of southern Somalia and also the capital Mogadishu while Somali government force runs a few blocks in the capital, where at least 6,300 African Union peacekeepers are guarding the airport and presidential palace.

    In recent days, the militants have intensified their offensive on government targets and killed four Ugandan peacekeepers deployed near the presidential palace.

    More than 150 people have been killed over the last 10 days during the latest escalation of violence in Mogadishu, according medics.

    The Horn of Africa nation has not had an affective government since warlords overthrew long-time dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

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