Saturday, June 10, 2006
Associated Press
MOGADISHU, Somalia – The leader of the Islamic militia tightening its grip on this lawless nation wears cheap sandals and rides in an old truck with two bodyguards in a town where a dozen is standard.
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed doesn’t seek attention. But his forces – some with alleged al-Qaida ties – have captured the capital, and the world is listening.
Ahmed’s rhetoric has softened considerably in recent weeks as international leaders have expressed concern about a possible Taliban-style government in the Horn of Africa.
In the past, Ahmed has said unequivocally that a government based on Islam is how to bring order to a country wracked by anarchy for more than a decade. During an interview in northern Mogadishu, the cleric portrayed himself as a democrat, while making obvious his personal preference for an Islamic-based system of governance.
“We do not want to impose sharia law,” he said. “Somalis should decide what they want.”
The United States has cooperated with Ahmed’s rival secular warlords – the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism – because of information that an Islamic court leader was harboring three al-Qaida suspects indicted for bombing U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
Ahmed denies anyone in his organization has connections to al-Qaida.
“American concerns are based on misconception,” he said. “They used to take information from warlords … Islamic courts do not harbor foreign terrorists.”
Born July 25, 1964, on the outskirts of Mahadday, about 110 miles north of Mogadishu, Ahmed studied geography and Arabic at Sudan’s Kordafan University. In 2002, he became the chairman of a small, clan-based Islamic court in Jowhar intended to sort out petty crimes and business and family disputes.
After a falling out with the secular warlord controlling the town, Ahmed became a secondary school teacher in Mogadishu, where a gang abducted one of his 12-year-old students. The captors demanded a ransom from the boy’s family – a moment that Ahmed called a turning point.
“I began talking to members of my clan and campaigned for more Islamic courts in Somalia with strict laws and punishments,” said Ahmed, who is married with one son. “I wanted to fight banditry in Mogadishu, and decided to unite the city’s five Islamic courts.”
In 2004, he became chairman of the group, now made up of 11 courts and known as the Islamic Courts Union.
The group began competing for influence in earnest after a U.N.-backed interim government slowly began to gain international recognition.
Major battles over the last two months left the Islamic militia in control of most of southern Somalia and the warlords scattered.
The weak government, wracked by infighting, has not been able to enter the capital because of the violence.
While he has professed a willingness to hold talks with the interim government and accept democracy, Ahmed still insisted; “Islam will always have the upper hand.”
Source: AP, June 10, 2006
