Somalia Islamic courts warn against foreign troops

By Mohamed Ali Bile

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – A senior Islamic judicial official
warned Somalia’s interim government on Monday that talks on the
anarchic country’s future would be broken off if its parliament
invited in foreign peacekeeping troops.

Militia loyal to Islamic courts wrested control of the
capital Mogadishu last week from warlords widely believed to be
funded by Washington, after a three-month battle that killed at
least 350 people, most of them civilians.

The weak interim government, formed in Kenya in 2004, was
quick to praise the Islamic courts for the victory in Mogadishu
and has started talks with the courts to help it move there.

But Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the Mogadishu Islamic courts
chairman, said that if the talks were to continue, the
government had to first abandon its request for foreign troops.

“The government should stop the request of foreign troops
in order for internal discussion with us to continue,” Ahmed
told reporters. “Negotiations with the government are not
possible at this time because parliament could approve foreign
troops.”

Officials said parliament hoped to approve such a
deployment during Monday’s session in the southern city of
Baidoa.

Even if it passes the motion, the proposed force of Ugandan
and Sudanese troops cannot go unless the U.N. Security Council
lifts an arms embargo in place since 1992. Washington has
promised to veto any such attempt.

The government has repeatedly said it cannot operate in the
lawless Horn of Africa country without foreign peacekeepers to
provide security.

Somali lawmaker Awad Ashara said the government was ready
to talk to the Islamists about the issue.

“We are ready to open responsible negotiations with them
regarding anything they have a concern with,” he told Reuters
in Nairobi. “We have a common national cause with the Islamic
courts which is to save the Somali people.”

“READY TO DEAL”

Western diplomats said the government is trying to cut a
deal with the Islamic courts.

“(President Abdullahi) Yusuf is ready to deal with them and
give them their political ambitions and in turn the Islamic
courts will not impose its sharia law … in the period of the
transition,” one diplomat who declined to be named said.

“Now that the warlords are out of the equation … the only
hope for Somalia is an understanding between the courts and the
government.”

Analysts expect the arms embargo to remain even if the
parliament and the Inter-governmental Authority on Development
(IGAD), a regional conflict mediation body that helped form
Somalia’s government, pass the motion or not.

“I don’t see (the arms embargo being lifted), simply
because half of the IGAD countries are already breaking the
embargo by providing arms to Somali groups,” a U.N. source
said.

Fears of new fighting heightened on Sunday when Islamic
fighters armed with mortars and anti-aircraft guns, were
deployed near Balad, 30 km (18 miles) north of Mogadishu, in a
move believed to be a preparation to attack the last warlord
stronghold of Jowhar, 90 km north of the capital.

Analysts say if the Islamic militia captures Jowhar, they
will control most of south Somalia, raising questions about
whether they will help install the interim government or set up
a rival administration.

Somalia has been without a real government since 1991 when
former strongman Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted by clan
warlords. The interim government has so far failed to assert
any real authority over the country of 10 million people.

(Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed)