Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
7 November 2008
Mogadishu — Reports from the central town of Beledweyne say that delegates led by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed those currently based in the town have flown to Djibouti according to officials.
Omar Hashi Aden who is one of the closest officials of Sheikh Sharif confirmed to Shabelle that Sharif went to Djibouti for unknown matters after flew from Beledweyne's Ugas Khalif airport.
We shall keep you posted as soon as the news on this incident emerges.
Sheikh Sharif, who formed the ARS in exile, is seeking to push for the implementation of a deal to restore peace and has asked his supporters to back the measures adopted in Djibouti last month.
The wing of the ARS headed by Sheikh Sharif signed in October an agreement with the Ethiopian-backed transitional federal administration to restart peace efforts.
It calls for an Ethiopian troop pullback and ceasefire to start this month and the activation of joint security units to gradually take over until UN peacekeepers are deployed.
Sheikh Sharif called on all Somali factions to lay down their arms and participate in what he designated as a national unity era.
The Islamic Courts took control of much of Somalia in 2006, triggering an intervention by neighbouring Ethiopia, which propped up the UN-backed transitional government and ousted the Islamic Courts fighters.
While the group's political leadership largely fled to Eritrea, the movement's military and youth wing, the Shebab, switched to guerrilla warfare.
The Shebab, which rejected the Djibouti deal, has relentlessly targeted Ethiopian troops, Somali government forces and African Union peacekeepers.
The fighters have of late made substantial territorial gains in the country's southern and central regions.
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