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Hargeysa,
Somaliland, October 31, 2009 (SL Times) — The leader of Somaliland
called on Thursday for war against the hardline Shabaab rebels as the
region marked one year since deadly suicide attacks.
Twenty-four people were killed in the October 29, 2008 multiple blasts
that ripped through the presidential palace, Ethiopia's diplomatic
compound and the offices of the UN Development Programme in the
country's capital Hargeysa.
Somaliland blamed the Al-Qaeda-inspired Shabaab militia for the attacks.
"The attacks that hit Somaliland were aimed at undermining the existence
of our statehood and we must be united to fight against the perpetrators
of such incidents," President Dahir Riyale Kahin told a gathering
commemorating the events.
"We must go against those elements otherwise they will make our region
like Mogadishu."
Shabaab's leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, aka Mukhtar Abu Zubair, hails from
Somaliland.
The Shabaab, who control southern Somalia, have waged relentless battles
against Somalia's transitional government in the capital Mogadishu.
Unlike the rest of Somalia, Somaliland -- a former British protectorate
which broke away from the rump Somalia in 1991 -- has been relatively
peaceful.
Source: AFP, October 29, 2009
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