Al Shabab Insurgents Soften Stance on Closure of Mogadishu Airport

Al Shabab, the Islamist insurgent group fighting in southern Somalia announced on Thursday that Mogadishu’s Aden Adde airport may be reopened if the authorities are prepared to negotiate with them. A spokesman for Al Shabab, Sheikh Muqtar Robw Abu Mansur said that the reasons which led them to close the airport still exist, but that they may revoke the decision to blockade the airport.

“Our decision was not a Quranic verse and we can change it, but negotiations are necessary,” Sheikh Muqtar Robow, popularly known as Abu Mansur said by telephone on Thursday morning.

“We are fighting for the well being of the Somali people and we know that many public services were halted after the closure of the airport, so we may cancel our decision, because of the Somali people’s interest,” the Sheikh added during his press conference on Thursday morning.

He did not however elaborate with whom, when and where the negotiations will start.

“Managers of an air company based in Mogadishu tried to give us some money in return for the airport’s reopening and we told them that we do not take bribery” said the Sheikh.

In mid last month Al Shabab announced the blockade on Mogadishu airport saying that it was regularly used by American and Israeli intelligence services and also was a base for the African Union peacekeepers which they regard as invading forces.

They also said that the income from the airport was administered by the Ethiopian occupying forces.

The Islamic Courts Union, local elders and intellectuals have differently called for on Al Shabab to lift the blockade on the airport.

Earlier this week, a Mogadishu-based human rights organization claimed in a press release that at least 366 civilians have been killed in armed clashes and shelling in Mogadishu as the result of mortar attacks on the airport.

Source African Press Agency

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