By Guled Mohamed
MOGADISHU, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Somalia's Islamists plan to do what many believe to be impossible in a country synonymous with anarchy -- take the guns away from one of the world's most heavily armed populations.
Abdullahi Maalim Ali, head of internal security for the Islamists who control the capital Mogadishu and most of south-central Somalia, said the Islamists will go door-to-door collecting weapons owned by ordinary Somalis and organisations.
"Plans are under way to disarm people living in Mogadishu and the rest of the country," Ali told Reuters in a rare interview.
 |
Abdullahi Maalim Ali, the head of internal security for the Islamists
|
"This is aimed at improving security. It will be implemented slowly and in phases," he said, standing outside his office in the former police headquarters flanked by nearly a dozen bodyguards armed with assault rifles and machine guns.
The movement is now trying to persuade weapons dealers who have made Mogadishu's Bakara Market one of the world's great arms bazaars to accept compensation when their caches of missiles and heavy weapons are seized and registered, he said.
Dealers in other open-air gun markets will be treated the same, he said.
If implemented, the plan would make the Islamists Somalia's sole possessors and regulators of weapons in the areas they control.
Ali, known locally as Abu Utayba, is also in charge of public executions -- the second of which the Islamists carried out on Friday when a firing squad executed a murderer.
"Peace will only come once someone knows if he commits murder then he will also be executed," he said. "Muslims are policed by their souls but the rest of the world are policed by ordinary policemen.
"We want to use both in Somalia since they are Muslims. That's the only way to end anarchy here," the 42-year-old businessman-turned-cleric said.
HORN OF AFRICA 'HARMONY'
Tens of thousands of Somalis have died since Somalia succumbed to anarchy after the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
The Islamists, formed from a union of sharia courts that dispensed justice, took Mogadishu from U.S.-backed warlords in June and have since spread their strict version of sharia across the territory they control.
Though some Somalis complain of the harshness of the Islamists' rule, others credit them for bringing a semblance of order to a country starved of normalcy for 15 years.
The Islamists last week declared holy war against Ethiopia, which it accuses of having invaded Somalia to prop up the fragile interim government stranded in outlying Baidoa.
Ethiopia, which says the Islamists are led by terrorists, denies sending any soldiers save military advisers. But Ali said Ethiopians are in Baidoa, Wajid, and a few in Baardhere.
"In areas we control there are no Ethiopian troops but only spies. We have arrested many of the spies and are closing on the others we hope to catch," he said.
Ali warned Ethiopia and other countries to stop meddling in Somalia, which has become a place where other nations fight their battles.
"We wish to the tell the world that we have peace. They should desist from spoiling the peace," the soft-spoken, bespectacled man said.
"Harmony in the Horn of Africa is in our hands. If we want to destabilize peace in Ethiopia, we can do it. It should cease its aggression and interference. If not, we will double whatever they do to us," he said. (Additional reporting by Sahal Abdulle)
Source: Reuters, Oct. 15, 2006