HAFZA STOP PRESS

Islamist blames US for Somali mayhem

Web posted at: 3/5/2006

MOGADISHU: The United States has funded a new “anti-terror” coalition to fight Islamists in Mogadishu to avenge the killing of American soldiers there in the 1990s and to ensure anarchy persists, a leading Islamist has alleged.

In a rare interview, Sheikh Dahir Uweys, 61, who is on a US list of most wanted terrorists, said Washington was still bitter over the deaths of 18 soldiers in lawless Somalia during a UN mission in the early 1990s that went sour.

That incident was depicted in the film Black Hawk Down. “Americans were killed and dragged here, they have a grudge against the Somalis,” the military officer-turned-cleric said on Friday. Uweys said a newly formed Somali political group — calling itself the Mogadishu Anti-Terrorism Coalition and comprising many of the city’s major warlords — was behind a recent flare-up in violence, with US support and funding.

In the worst fighting of recent times in Mogadishu, at least 37 people died and scores were injured in mid-February when pro-coalition fighters clashed with Islamists, residents say. “The fighting was started and is being funded by the Americans ... and supported by Ethiopia,” Uweys said. “US diplomats in Nairobi said they had no comment on the allegations. Members of the coalition could not be immediately reached in Mogadishu for comment.

Ethiopia is the regional power-house in the Horn of Africa, and Islamists have long accused it of trying to interfere in Somlia with U.S. support. “We have fought with Ethiopia previously. We know they have assassins around who eliminate any bright Somali man they think can help the people,” he said.

Source ::: Reuters