Saturday, September 19, 2009
AFP Photo: President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed speaks at a press conference |
"Such barbaric acts which have no basis in the Islamic culture will not discourage us from maintaining efforts to bring law and order in the country", Sheikh Ahmed, an Islamist cleric, told journalists after Thursday's attack.
The Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab used two UN-tagged cars to slam explosives into the African Union peacekeeping mission's Mogadishu headquarters, the deadliest attack on AMISOM since its March 2007 deployment.
Five Ugandan troops, 12 Burundians and four Somali soldiers were killed, prompting calls for a fresh injection of international assistance.
The AU's special envoy to Somalia, Nicolas Bwakira, visited the base to pay homage to the dead, saying that peacekeepers' morale remained high despite the attack, an AU statement said.
The Shebab said they carried out the attack in revenge for a US raid that killed one of their leaders this week.
Sheikh Ahmed said that his transitional government had given US forces the go-ahead for the attack on regional Al-Qaeda leader Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan.
"The government knew about the presence of the top Al-Qaeda operatives, but we could not pursue and arrest them so we have given the US the green light to attack them," he said.
Nabhan, a Kenyan citizen wanted by the FBI over the 2002 anti-Israeli attacks in Mombasa, was killed when his vehicle was targeted by US helicopters in southern Somalia, according to US officials and Western security sources.
Source: AFP, Sept 19, 2009