Kenyan police arrests top Somali Islamist leader

Jan 15, 2007 (GARISSA, Kenya) — Kenyan police arrested a top leader in Somalia’s Islamist militant movement Monday, a Kenyan security official said.

The leader was arrested at midmorning at a refugee camp near the Kenyan border with Somalia, the official said, quoting from a police report. The official said he was on his way to the Dadaab refugee camp, 100 kilometers east of Garissa, to help identify the suspect.

If confirmed, the arrest could be a major step toward ending the fighting in Somalia, which began when Ethiopian troops intervened to stop the Islamic movement’s advance to destroy the internationally backed government. Movement leaders Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, or Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed have pledged to carry on a guerrilla war as long as Ethiopian troops remain in Somalia.

Unidentified gunmen have repeatedly attacked Ethiopian troops in the capital, Mogadishu, over the last two weeks.

Aweys was the founder of the Council of Islamic Courts, which took up arms to establish an Islamic emirate in Somalia in January. Before that, he was a senior leader is al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, a group listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization with ties to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida.

Ahmed is considered a religious moderate compared with Aweys. He emerged as the leader of the courts’ executive council early in 2006, but has been named as a religious leader who could be part of national reconciliation talks to end 16 years of clan violence in Somalia.

The Horn of Africa country has not had an effective central government since 1991, when clan warlords overthrew the government and then turned on each other. The Islamic courts control most of southern Somalia for six months, until Ethiopia intervened on Dec. 24. Within 10 days, the Islamic council had been driven out of all major towns and was in hiding.

(AP)