Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Missionary International Service News Agency (MISNA)
The traditional chiefs of the families that control southern Somalia for the first time authorised the Islamic Courts – in power in Mogadishu since the start of June – to organise training camps in the region.
As reported by a radio broadcast of the capital, around a hundred militants have begun training in the village of Salagle, around 500km south of Mogadishu, in the Middle Shabelle region under the aegis of the Islamic Courts.
According to sources of the Courts ‘headquarters’ in Mogadishu, also nine instructors of the former national army, dissolved after the fall of Siad Barre in 1991, are engaged in the training operations.
Hussein Mohammed Keynan, one of the elders quoted by the radio, in an interview stated that the trainees are youths from different southern regions that enrolled voluntarily.
In the past weeks dialogue resumed between the Islamic Courts – that repelled the US-backed warlords from Mogadishu after three months of violent fighting – and the fragile interim government based in Baidoa, around 250km north-west of the capital, which is backed by the international community.
The issues of the national armed forces and reunification of the army are on the agenda of the talks.
During the negotiations, the Courts expressed will to reach a compromise with the interim government, but firmly refuse the deployment in Somalia of an international peace contingent.
In the past days, for the first time in over 15 years, in Mogadishu former soldiers held a military parade to reiterated their opposition to the deployment of a foreign force, particularly Ethiopian soldiers.
Source: MISNA, Sept 12, 2006
