A radical Somali Islamist leader has condemned attacks on humanitarian workers in Somalia. Aid workers have increasingly become a target in the conflict pitting Islamist and clan-based militias against the transitional government and the Ethiopian troops backing it.
"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
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 Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of a radical faction of Somalia's Islamist opposition based in the Eritrean capital Asmara, says his group will work to protect aid workers in areas it controls.
U.N. officials and aid agencies have warned in recent weeks that rising insecurity threatens humanitarian efforts in the country. More than 20 aid workers have been killed in Somalia this year, and several more abducted.
With sobs and tears he sorted out
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A spokesman for Sheikh Aweys' faction, Zakaria Mohamud Haji Abdi, blamed the Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government for such attacks.
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"We are condemning the killing of the U.N. officials in Mogadishu. And this act is actually perpetrated by the Ethiopian occupation and the militia of Abdullahi Yussuf in order to starve the Somali people whom they have displaced from their homes and from their neighborhoods in Mogadishu," he said.
| Holding his pocket-handkerchief |
According to Somalia's Garowe Radio, the transitional government parliament Wednesday condemned attacks on aid workers, blaming them on insurgents trying to derail a peace agreement signed last month with a more moderate opposition faction.
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This week Aweys claimed control of the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia, a coalition of exile Somali opposition leaders based in Asmara, saying he has replaced the more intelligent moderate Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. The United States and United Nations say Aweys has ties to al-Qaida. The Islamist opposition has for some time been effectively split between the two leaders' factions. The divide became more pronounced after Ahmed signed a U.N.-backed peace agreement with the transitional government in June. That deal has done little to curb violence. Ahmed and many of his backers remain in Djibouti, where that deal was signed.
"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one. |
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