Profile: Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed

[N.O.R.F]

Profile: Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed

 

 

Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, 44, won a majority of the votes when the Somali parliament elected a new president on January 31.

 

He is the former leader of Somalia's ousted Islamic Courts Union, which waged a bitter war against the country's weak transitional government.

 

In late 2006, he was forced to flee the country amid an Ethiopian invasion supporting the government.

 

Ahmed currently chairs a group of opposition leaders called the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) and is an influential religious leader in the country.

 

Considered a "moderate" Muslim, he was born in the Mahaday district, about 100km north of Mogadishu in 1964.

 

After attending Islamic schools in Somalia, he went on to study in Sudan and Libya during the 1990s before becoming a geography teacher in a Mogadishu secondary school.

 

He has said it was the kidnapping of a young student for ransom that drove him to set up an Islamic sharia court to rid the capital of banditry.

 

He has led the Islamic Courts since July 2004. The organisation drew together more than a dozen sharia tribunals set up in the 1990s to restore a degree of law and order to the capital Mogadishu.

 

Islamic courts rule

 

By the summer of 2006, the Islamic courts had managed to unify Mogadishu, and under Ahmed's leadership, the Islamic Courts and the allied al-Shabab armed group gained control of most of southern Somalia.

 

In its six months of rule, the movement was credited with bringing peace and stability to the region for the first time in 15 years, but was also criticised for strict religious practices.

 

Seeing the movement as a threat to both itself and the UN-backed transitional Somali government, Ethiopia entered its Horn of Africa neighbour in December 2006, forcing out the Islamic Courts.

 

Ahmed surrendered to Kenyan authorities on the border in January 2007, although he was released days later.

 

He returned to Somalia last November under UN-sponsored peace agreements with the transitional government signed in Djibouti in July and October 2008.

 

Presidential bid

 

Under those deals, Ethiopian forces have pulled out of the country - a situation Sheikh Ahmed has claimed credit for.

 

Seats in the Somali parliament were also doubled to 550 in order to accommodate 200 members of Ahmed's group, as well as 75 other opposition figures.

 

Ahmed was banking on that, and support from his numerically-strong Abgal clan of northern Mogadishu to win him the presidency.

 

"My first priority is to bring peace to Somalia and I will serve the nation to the best of my ability," he has said of himself.

 

Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, former speaker of the Somali parliament, has also backed his candidacy, saying Ahmed "is one of the most prominent figures in Somalia".

 

"Sheikh Sharif is the best choice to overcome the current crisis," he said.

 

Al-Shabab, Ahmed's former allies, have rejected the Djibouti peace deals, and are expected to fight against Ahmed when he takes office.