Sheik Sharif says Ethiopia is committed to withdraw (Shabelle Media Network)

[Liibaan]

 

Ethiopia: Sheik Sharif says Ethiopia is committed to withdraw

 

December 11, 2008 05:53 AM

By Shabelle Media Network

 

The chairman of the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed told Shabelle Media Network that Ethiopia is committed to withdraw from Somalia.

 

Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed said he came to Mogadishu to implement the peace deal signed in Djibouti between the Somali transitional federal government and his Alliance.

 

I have more information about the withdrawal of the Ethiopian troops and I can assure you that they are going to withdraw very soon, Sheik Sharif said. I want Somali people to welcome this. He added.

 

Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed said he has been accompanied in his trip to Mogadishu by the security committee who signed the Djibouti peace agreement. He also said that they were planning to have meetings with the traditional elders to enhance the efforts of the peace process

 

Somali president Abdullah Yusuf can not disrupt the ongoing peace process, he has been the Somali president for the last four years and he brought nothing but violence, Sheik Sharif said referring to the statement of the Somali president that the Djibouti peace was not encompassing all Somali clans.

 

A delegate led by Sheik Sharif returned back to Mogadishu yesterday for the first time in two years.

 

He was warmly welcomed by top officials from the transitional federal government and Islamists.

[Liibaan]

 

 

 

 

Islamic Leader Returns to Mogadishu amid Islamist Rift

 

The Media Line Staff

 

Mogadishu, Somalia (THE MEDIA LINE) - Two years after the fall of the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC) in Somalia, its chairman, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad, returned yesterday to Mogadishu for the first time.

 

Ahmad is heading one of two groups that had sprung from the original SCIC. At the end of last month, his Djibouti-based Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), agreed to a power-sharing deal with Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) that doubled the size of parliament. Leader of the rival Asmara-based faction of the ARS, Sheikh Hasan Dahir 'Aweis, himself a former SCIC leader, has accused Ahmad of "siding with the enemy."

 

Ahmad's faction of the ARS began its U.N.-hosted talks with the TFG on November 22. "This is a historical agreement, which works for the interest of the Somali people," said Ahmad, according to The Media Line's (TML) reporter in Somalia.

 

The agreement provided for the enlargement of parliament to 550 members, of which 200 seats would go to Sharif's ARS.

 

Nevertheless, sources in Somalia asserted that the agreement, which aimed to put an end to two decades of civil war, would be hard to implement.

 

Interim President 'Abdullahi Yousuf was not involved in the negotiations and is opposing the deal reached. Yousuf's close adviser, MP 'Abd A-Rashid Muhammed Iro, said the president did not regard the agreement as binding. Two major opposition groups have also rejected the agreement, including the Asmara-based faction of the ARS and the armed group Shabab, which continues to this day to fight the TFG inside Somalia.

 

Meanwhile, reinforcements of Ethiopian troops were seen advancing into Somalia in the past few days. The move contradicts the Ethiopian army's announcement it would withdraw from Somalia after a two-year presence there.

 

The Ethiopian army aided the TFG's armed forces to overthrow SCIC in January 2007 after the Islamic group held power for almost one year.

 

It is now estimated that the SCIC's military wing, the Shabab, has regained control over 90 percent of Somalia's southern regions, as well as parts of the capital.