With US president Barack Obama this week announcing sanctions against key insurgent commanders in Somalia, the country’s World-backed transitional federal government (TFG) on Thursday lauded the move.
Somali government treasury minister Engineer Abdurahman Omar Osman said in an interview with the state-run radio Thursday, that the Somali government was happy with the big announcement from US President Barak Obama, who ordered the freezing of assets of some key figures within the Alqaeda-linked Militants in Somalia.
“Somali government is welcoming every step which decreases the danger from the Alqaeda-proxy in Somalia and we can say that the US government has taken a good decision” the Somali minister stated.
“Such step will be an example for the terrorists who are killing Somali people, and they have to know that the world will no longer tolerate what they are doing against Somalis” he said.
This week, US president Barack Obama ordered the US treasury department to freeze the assets of Somali insurgent commanders including Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, a key Islamist leader in Somalia and the founder of Al Itihad Al Islam, a terrorist group that fought in eastern Ethiopia in the 1990s.
For the past three years, insurgents have been fighting the Somali government in a bid to overthrow the world-backed government and establish a Taliban-like Islamic rule in Somalia.
At least 21,000 people, mainly civilians have been killed in fighting in Mogadishu alone, while more than 1.5 million civilians have fled from their homes in the restive city since January 2007.
