A Question For Sharif Ahmed ‎

EDITORIAL

On last Sunday most of Mogadishu , Somalia ’s former capital, fell to the militia of the “Islamic Courts Union” after weeks of fighting against their rival warlords, the “ Alliance for Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism”.

Immediately after claiming that his forces seized control in Mogadishu , the ICU’s nominal chairman, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, announced that his group intended to establish an Islamic state in all Somali territories. Sheikh Sharif also denied that the ICU had links with Al-Qaida.

In a letter to a number of world governments and organizations, Sharif Ahmed who studied Sharia law in Libya then in Sudan , said that the United States by backing the ARPCT warlords had contributed considerly to the recent bloodshed in Mogadishu .

The Americans have long suspected that at least 3 Al-Qaida leaders were being harbored in Mogadishu by fundamentalist armed groups associated with the Islamic Courts.

With the so-called Transitional Federal Government of Somalia unable to establish itself in Mogadishu , the US apparently sought the assistance of the ARPCT in capturing or eliminating the Al-Qaida men allegedly hiding in the war-ravaged city.

Sharif Ahmed claimed that the Americans were prompted into action on the basis of false information. The Wadaad (Mullah) could be right. But what the leader of Mogadishu’s Islamic Courts opted not to talk about was the involvement of the most senior elements in his group in a series of assassinations carried out against scores of Somali individuals in Somalia as well as 5 aid workers in Somaliland for the past 4 years.

While Sheikh Sharif was trying to convince the world that there were no terrorists in Mogadishu , the facts on ground were different. On June 5, the court of appeals in Hargeysa, Somaliland, sat to review a decision reached earlier by a lower court against 18 men accused of involvement in the killings of an Italian health worker and 2 British teachers in 2003 and a Kenyan woman consultant in 2004.

In the original trial, 15 of the suspects received sentences ranging from the death penalty to life imprisonment, while further investigation was ordered with regard to the case against the remaining 3 for lack of sufficient evidence. The Appeal court ruled that the 2 of the defendants be released while upholding the rest of the verdicts as passed by the lower court.

But guess who was among the accused: Adan Hashi “Ayro”, the chairman of Ifka Halane Islamic Court in Mogadishu . He has been accused of masterminding the terrorist operations that targeted foreign aid workers and international observers of the September 2005 parliamentary elections in Somaliland . It is also widely held that Ayro was behind last year’s killing in Mogadishu of Abdul-Qader Yahya, one of Somalia ’s most re-known peace activists. But the question is what else could have possibly motivated an Ayr/Habar Gidir boy from the Hawiye clan to plot the killing of innocent Muslims and non Muslims in a place like Hargeysa other than a commitment to fulfill terrorist objectives?!

Sharif Ahmed may keep talking nicely to the international community. But if he continues to evade the solid facts that implicate some of his Islamic Courts in terrorism, he will be embarrassingly unconvincing as far as the Somalis are concerned.

Source: Somaliland Times

Home | Contact us | Links | Archives