SOMALIA/KENYA: Islamic Courts to hold talks with the transitional Somalia government

Record ID: 362849

  • Title: SOMALIA/KENYA: Islamic Courts to hold talks with the transitional Somalia government
  • Date: 23rd June 2006
  • Summary: PEOPLE OUTSIDE
  • Embargoed: 8th July 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: War / Fighting,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVABOYM1P09WVR5JLEKHRRW2GSYK
  • Story Text: Mogadishu's new Islamist rulers said on Wednesday (June 21) that they plan to meet Somalia's interim government in Sudan under the auspices of the Arab League to try and avoid war following a recent power-shift in the Horn of Africa nation.
    The Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which groups 14 sharia courts whose militia control Mogadishu and nearby towns, said its leader, Sudan-educated religious scholar Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, would send a 10-man team instead of going personally.
    "This is an opportunity to present the political view of the Islamic Courts to the international community," Ahmed told reporters in Mogadishu.
    The Islamic militia kicked U.S.-backed warlords out of Mogadishu on June 5, rising hope that they would work with the weak government -- based in the provincial town of Baidoa -- to install the first truly national administration for 15 years.
    But the two sides quickly moved apart. The Islamists accused President Abdullahi Yusuf's administration of encouraging an incursion by Ethiopian troops, while the government said that is a lie intended to justify an attack on Baidoa.
    Foreign powers are scrambling to react to the Islamists' take-over of Mogadishu, after battles that killed some 350 people, and fear conflict with Yusuf's government.
    Arab League spokesman Alaa Rushdy said Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir would run the meeting of the group's Somalia committee in Khartoum on Thursday.
    The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, said on Wednesday (June 21) that the Islamists militia in control of Mogadishu should stop expanding into other areas of Somalia.
    The United States has convened an international "Contact Group" to look at ways to prevent fighting, while the United Nations and African Union are planning to send missions.
    Islamist militia advanced on the Somali town of Jowhar on June 14, aiming to expand their control of southern Somalia and beginning to flank the weak interim government's base in Baidoa. The Islamist capture of the critical town of Jowhar gives them control of a sizeable swathe of southern Somalia stretching from Mogadishu at the coast almost to the Ethiopian border. It also means they could strike at Baidoa from two directions.
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