Saturday, May 02, 2009

MOGADISHU, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Somali hardline Islamist leader, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, who returned to the country's capital Mogadishu from two-year exile last week, said on Friday that the extrajudicial killing of people should be stopped since the fight is directed as "infidels".

"The killing of people should be stopped because you know when you were struggling it was them who helped you with their money and blood," Aweys told worshipers at a mosque in Mogadishu.

Many people are killed in southern and central Somalia, particularly the capital Mogadishu, for allegedly supporting the Somali government or for being spies while many others are assassinated "by mistake" by insurgent fighters.

The firebrand Islamist leader who was speaking during a Friday sermon in one of the main mosques in Mogadishu condemned such killings, saying the war is not directed at the Somali people but at what he described as the "infidels".

"Our Jihad (holy war) is directed at the infidels but not at our people," Aweys said, adding that allegations should not be a reason for killing people but "evidence witnessed by all".

Aweys is opposed to the current Somali government.

Before his return, Sheikh Aweys had been based in the Eritrean capital of Asmara since the ouster of the Islamist movement, the Islamic Courts Union, which he led, from power in late 2006 by allied Ethiopian and the forces of the then Somali government led by former president Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed who resigned late last year.

Aweys split with the current President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed over the peace talks with the government, which ultimately led to the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from the war-wrecked Horn of Africa nation.

Source: Xinhua, May 2, 2009