Wednesday, May 3, 2006
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Somalia’s president said Wednesday he believes the United States is financing an alliance of warlords fighting radical Islamic militias in his country and said the U.S. should be working directly with his government instead.
“We think it is true. They are supporting the warlords,” Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed said during a two-day visit to Stockholm.
Rumors of U.S. support for the alliance, which includes members of the interim Cabinet and armed businessmen, have been rampant in Somalia lately.
The United States has said only that American officials
have met with a wide variety of Somali leaders in an effort to fight international terrorists in the country.
Ahmed told The Associated Press in an interview that he believes the American government is supporting the warlords-turned-politicians as a way of fighting several top al Qaeda operatives that are being protected by radical clerics.
“They really think they can capture al Qaeda members in Somalia,” he said. “But the Americans should tell the warlords they should support the government, and cooperate with the government. … We are the legitimate government, and we will help you fight terrorism.”
He said U.S. support for the warlords could undermine the government’s efforts to bring stability to the region.
“These groups, they really do not want Somalia to become a stabilized country,” he said. “They do not want the government to function.”
Somalia has not had an effective central government since clan-based warlords overthrew the government in 1991 and then began fighting each other.
A transitional government headed by Ahmed was formed in October 2004, but its members quickly split over what the government’s priorities were and where it should be located.
Several key warlords in the new government have formed an alliance with the stated aim of capturing al Qaeda members in the country. The Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism was formed after a fundamentalist Islamic group began asserting itself in the capital and portrayed itself as an alternative to warlords.
Fueling suspicion that the group is receiving outside aid, the alliance has become one of the most powerful militias in Somalia in a matter of months.
Residents of alliance-held areas report trucks full of new weapons, and Somalis with connections to the alliance have said U.S. officials have frequently visited alliance leaders.
Ahmed said his government is committed to fighting terrorism, but that it can only be effective if it first gets help from the international community “to build the country up from scratch.”
“In order to fight this, we really need to build up our own military force, and we have to reconcile the different factions,” he said. “We have to isolate these (terrorist) groups, they are only small groups.”
He also said he would not object to employing Ethiopian peacekeepers in Somalia help pacify the country, a parliamentary proposal that has met strong local opposition as the two countries fought a bitter war in 1977 over control of Ethiopia’s Ogaden region.
“I do not oppose that, but we need to be careful because that is something that could cause more rifts,” he said. “But without peacekeeping forces, we cannot build our country.”
Source: AP, May 2, 2006
