Hiiraan Online (in Somali)

Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmed, the chairman of the executive committee of the Somali Islamic Courts, has said that they will come to Somalia to liberate the country and not to participate in the [Somali] Reconciliation Conference. “We are coming to the country to liberate it. We are not coming to take part in the conference because Somalia is not free; it is under the occupation of the enemy that invaded it,” Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmed said.

Shaykh Sharif stated that they would not participate in a reconciliation meeting as long as Ethiopian troops were in Somalia, adding that the conference now taking place in Mogadishu would not produce any results.

He said that a conference that would be attended by 200 delegates would soon be held in Asmara, Eritrea, to form an organization that would campaign for the liberation of Somalia.

Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmed condemned the AU, which he claimed committed a major blunder by authorizing Ethiopia to send its troops to Somalia.

Commenting on the crisis in Mogadishu’s Bakaaraha market, Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmed, the chairman of the executive committee of the Islamic Courts, accused the federal government of saturating the market with soldiers who were committing robberies, killings, and incessant displacement against people.

Shaykh Sharif Shaykh Ahmed’s remarks that they are not taking part in the Somali Reconciliation Conference have put to rest the reports that there are efforts to persuade leaders of the Islamic Courts to participate in the Somali Reconciliation Conference.

Finally, the Somali Reconciliation Conference underway in Mogadishu is opposed by the Islamic Courts, some Hawiye clan elders, and by former members of the federal Somali parliament now calling themselves Independent Parliament.