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Islamists under 'black flag'
20/10/2006 10:33 - (SA)
Nairobi - Somalia's interim president appealed on Thursday for international help in dealing with a powerful Islamist movement he accused of operating under the "black flag" of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Speaking in the Kenyan capital to a United States-backed panel of diplomats trying to salvage foundering peace talks between the two sides, President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed said the world had a "moral obligation" to help protect his weak government from "foreign terrorists".
He said the Islamists, who seized the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in June from warlords and now controlled nearly all of southern and central Somalia, were falsely portraying themselves as moderates and posed a major regional and international threat.
'Safe haven' for terrorists
Yusuf, who survived a suicide car bomb assassination attempt last month, said moderates in the movement had been outmanoeuvred by hardliners bent on toppling the government and creating a "safe haven" for terrorists.
Yusuf said: "This jihadist wing of the group now controls the (Islamist) militia under the banner of literally the black flag of the Taliban." Yusuf was speaking at a meeting of the International Contact Group on Somalia in Nairobi.
He referred to the Islamists' seizure last month of the key southern Somali port of Kismayo, where Muslim gunmen took down the Somali national flag and replaced it with a black banner inscribed with a Qur'anic verse, prompting protests.
Yusuf said: "A collection of foreign terrorists from Afghanistan, Chechnya, Arab (nations) and even of European origin make up a considerable number of the jihadist forces."
He said: "The Islamists drag massive, material, financial and military support from international terror networks", noting that Osama bin Laden had mentioned Somalia as a battleground against the West in a audiotape broadcast in July.
11 people killed
Yusuf said this was "a sworn al-Qaeda promise, already partially carried out on the ground in Baidoa recently", referring to the September 18 car bomb attempt to kill him in the government's temporary seat, the town of Baidoa.
He said a government probe of the attack, in which at least 11 people were killed, had uncovered Islamist documents "listing a number of government leaders condemned as infidels and targets for immediate physical elimination".
The Islamists, who arrived late for the Contact Group meeting despite saying they would send a senior representative, had denied any terror ties.
But, several of their leaders were accused of links to al-Qaeda and the United States believed the movement was harbouring suspects in the 1998 bombings of its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
US assistant secretary of state for African affairs Jendayi Frazer, who attended the Nairobi meeting, renewed those charges on Thursday and said Yusuf's concerns were "credible".
Frazer said: "Somalia is a safe haven for terrorists."
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