East Africa: Sheikh Sharif - a History of Balancing Acts

Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Somalia's 47-year old president, is a media savvy politician who has inculcated a sophisticated image on the global media scene as a moderate reformist who is doing the most difficult job on earth -- trying to bring peace to his country.

To Ethiopia and Kenya, who helped him get elected the president of the Transition Federal Government in Somalia, Sheikh Sharif is the man of the struggle, a former schoolteacher who was drawn to fight Al Shabaab after his pupils were kidnapped by the terrorists.On Monday, however, he shocked regional security specialists when he withdrew his support for Kenya's military incursion into Somalia.

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