Word: somalia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...There is also the accusation that we intend to establish an anti-US and Western government in Somalia. This is not true. Such an agenda is against our objectives and goals since this would contradict our wish for there to be a peaceful Somalia. This falsehood is being fabricated to get support from US Government by groups who have terrorized the people of this country for the last 16 years...
...Since Somalia's Islamic leaders took control of the capital, Mogadishu, Monday after months of heavy fighting with warlords, the Bush Administration has made no secret of its worry that Somalia could become a new version of Afghanistan under the Taliban. "We don't want to see Somalia turn into a safe haven for foreign terrorists," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "We do have very real concerns about that...
...various European and African embassies, that aims to allay those fears. In the four-page letter obtained by TIME, signed by Sheikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed, Chairman of the Islamic Courts Union in Mogadishu, the city's new bosses say they want to end the chaos and bloodshed in Somalia's capital, help rebuild the country and "establish a friendly relationship with the international community that is based on mutual respect and interest...
...Islamic Courts' appeal for cooperation comes at a time of fundamental change in Somalia's capital, which like most of the rest of the country has had no functioning government for 15 years. During that time, southern Somalia has been ruled by warlords, who have carved the Horn of Africa nation into a patchwork of fiefdoms. The warlords fought U.S. peacekeepers sent to secure United Nations' aid deliveries during a terrible drought in the early 1990s, but some are now believed to be backed by the U.S. Those warlords have now fled the capital, or are holed up and surrounded...
...Over the past two decades, the influence of Islamic clerics in Somalia has grown steadily. Like the warlords, they use their own militias and freelance hired guns to enforce their rule. But many residents of Mogadishu have applauded the Islamic groups for cracking down on crime, dismantling the hundreds of roadblocks around the capital and running schools and health clinics when no one else would. They began providing social services in the early 1990s, and by 1998 a loose collection of Islamic courts had been established and was running parts of Mogadishu. When TIME interviewed Sheikh Hussan Sheikh Mohammed Adde...