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Letters that sparked US
Somalia alert fake-Islamists |
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Monday,
November 27th, 2006 |
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MOGADISHU, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Somali Islamists on Monday dismissed
as fake two letters purportedly signed by their most influential
leader and which led to a U.S. warning of possible suicide attacks
in Kenya and Ethiopia.
Washington issued its warning to U.S. citizens on Nov 2 in response
to what it said were "terrorist threats emanating from extremist
elements within Somalia".
The Kenyan Sunday Nation newspaper said it had obtained two letters
said to be signed by Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who
appears on U.S. and U.N. terrorism lists, but could not establish
their authenticity.
It said the letters called for the assassination of 17 prominent
Kenyans and Somalis, an uprising by ethnic groups in Kenya and
Ethiopia and for militia fighters of the Islamists' feared Shabab
arm to mass on the Kenya-Somali border.
A U.S. embassy spokeswoman said on Sunday the letters made specific
threats against public targets in Ethiopia and Kenya, called for
suicide attacks, and led to Washington's advisory.
"An assassin will not write a letter and say I will carry out a
plan. Even in the copy we saw, they could not get the letterhead
right," Ibrahim Hassan Addow, in charge of foreign affairs for the
Islamists, told Reuters.
"Those who want attack us and bring foreign troops to Somalia want
to use this cheap tactic to get American support ... It is
unfortunate that a State Department official accepted this and used
it in American foreign policy towards Somalia."
The letters surfaced amid belligerent rhetoric and heightened fears
that a standoff between Somalia's interim government and rival
Islamists may spiral into a regional war, sucking in neighbouring
countries.
U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were the target of truck bombs
in 1998 that killed more than 200 people. Kenya has previously
expressed concern that one of the alleged masterminds was sighted in
Mogadishu and may be operating inside Kenya.
The U.S. warning came two weeks after Somali President Abdullahi
Yusuf addressed diplomats, citing a document, described as an order
by Aweys approving both his and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi's
assassination.
Diplomats say the letters were passed around by members of the
Ethiopian-backed interim government, which has been seeking foreign
peacekeepers since October 2004.
Many diplomats doubt their authenticity and say they are part of a
push to get U.S. backing for a waiver to a 1992 arms embargo on
Somalia, to permit peacekeepers to enter the country legally with
their weapons.
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| Caynaba News
kama masuul aha afkaarta ay xanbaarsan yihiin qoraallada ay
akhristayaashu fekerkooda ku cabbirayaan. |
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11:00 GMT
