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Somalia elects man demonized by the west

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 Somalia Elects Man Demonized By The West 
 
Rob Crilly
Saturday, January 31, 2009

Funny how things work out. Two years ago Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was on the run from an Ethiopian assault that had snatched Mogadishu from the Islamists who ran the city peacefully for six months. America had given its tacit support to the strike, fearing that Somalia was about to become a haven for al Qaeda. Sheikh Sharif was a wanted man.

Now he is president of Somalia, or at least that part of Somalia controlled by an alliance of the old discredited Transitional Federal Government and Sheikh Sharif’s moderate wing of the Islamist Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia.

 

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Erdogan urges world to recognize hamas

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Erdogan urges world to recognize Hamas

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 09:24:15 GMT

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for recognition of Hamas which won a landslide victory in Palestinian elections.

In an interview with The Washington Post published Saturday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said isolating Hamas is the reason for the ongoing tensions in the region.

 

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Freedom fighters terrorists or schlemiels?

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You Decide

Freedom Fighters, Terrorists or Schlemiels?

By SAUL LANDAU

Condi Rice: “What we’re seeing here, in a sense, is the growing birth pangs of a new Middle East.”

Jon Stewart: “Birth pangs? Yes, I believe today’s contraction took out a city block.”

On January 21, President Obama telephoned the King of Jordan, the Prime Minister of Israel, the President of Egypt and Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, before dispatching former Senator George Mitchell to spearhead peace negotiations. He excluded Hamas leaders from his phone tree, although they had won the 2006 election to represent the people of Gaza. Obviously, Hamas has also won the label “terrorist” and, as Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni proudly if not smugly assured members of the National Press Club in Washington DC, Israel would not talk with Hamas. “We do not negotiate with terrorists,” she asserted, moral indignation dripping from her words. (January 16)

 

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Fatah fears Gaza conflict has put hamas in the ascendancy

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 Fatah fears Gaza conflict has put Hamas in the ascendancy

By Patrick Cockburn

The Islamic movement Hamas is taking over from Fatah, the party created by Yasser Arafat, as the main Palestinian national organisation as a result of the war in Gaza, says a leading Fatah militant. "We have moved into the era of Hamas which is now much stronger than it was," said Husam Kadr, a veteran Fatah leader in the West Bank city of Nablus, recently released after five-and-a-half years in Israeli prisons.

"Its era started when Israel attacked Gaza on 27 December."

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