Garowe Online (Garowe)
12 December 2008
A senior member of a Somali rebel group based in the Eritrean capital of Asmara has warned against the eruption of war among Islamist factions fighting against Somalia's government, Radio Garowe reported Friday.
Sheikh Hassan Mahdi, the judicial secretary of the Eritrea-based Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), told journalists in Mogadishu that recent events across the country indicate "a worsening situation."
"It is un-Islamic to destroy administrations built by local communities, in places where there are no Ethiopian soldiers," Sheikh Mahdi said.
He admitted that Somalia' s Islamists have broken up into different factions and appealed for unity in fighting against the Ethiopian army.
But he warned that "war among Islamists" could erupt if Islamist factions attack "liberated regions," adding: "The public will be disappointed [with such a war]."
Sheikh Mahdi did not directly name a single Islamist faction for the alleged actions, but his comments come at a time the Islamist Al Shabaab group captured key towns in central Somalia's Galgadud region.
Danger
Galgadud is the native region of Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the legislative head of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) that rose to power in 2006 with a military victory over warlords in Mogadishu.
Sheikh Aweys has lived in Eritrea ever since Ethiopian-backed Somali government forces overthrew the ICU from Mogadishu two years ago, forcing the Islamists to scatter and ignite a bloody anti-Ethiopia insurgency that rages to date.
The Islamist factions maintain strongholds in different parts of Somalia, with Galgadud and Lower Shabelle regions long considered Sheikh Aweys' powerbase.
But Al Shabaab insurgents, who are based in the Jubba regions, recently seized both Galgadud and Lower Shabelle and prompted the Eritrea-based ARS group to issue a public warning about the possibility of open hostilities among the Islamists.
A third opposition group, led by ICU executive chief Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, recently inked a peace pact with the Somali government that includes incorporating the fighting force of the two parties into a single national security force.
More destruction?
A war among Islamists could potentially worsen Africa's worst humanitarian crisis. Currently, the insurgency is largely limited to towns where there are Ethiopian troops present.
But Islamist factions control different regions in Somalia and all-out war among them would plunge the Horn of Africa country back into a cycle of violence reminscicent of the clan wars.
Elman Human Rights group, based in Somalia, recently issued a report on casualty figures collected over the past two years of a deadly insurgency.
16,210 people were killed and upwards of 29,000 others wounded in fighting during the insurgency, Elman reported.
Somalia has been mired in civil war since 1991 and a number of international efforts to restore order in the country have failed, including the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of 2006.
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