Somalia elects man demonized by the west
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.