Somali Islamist leader vows to protect aid workers

The United Nations said last week that recent killings andkidnappings of aid workers in Somalia threatened to wreck allefforts to end one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters.

Aweys, an Islamist cleric who is on U.S. and U.N. lists ofal Qaeda suspects, called on the international community tohelp his Eritrea-based opposition group expel Ethiopian forcessupporting the country's fragile Western-backed government.

Islamist insurgents have waged an Iraq-style insurgency ofroadside bombs, mortar attacks and assassinations against theadministration and its Ethiopian allies since early last year.

But the rebels have blamed government hardliners for a waveof attacks targeting senior local humanitarian staff.

Somali officials deny the accusations.

"We are very grateful to the aid workers who are helpingthe starving Somali community and we strongly condemn those whokill or abduct them," Aweys told Reuters by telephone fromAsmara.

"We shall do what we can to safeguard aid workersespecially in the areas under our control. We shall help,escort and defend them. They are killed by the enemies who thenput the blame on us," the former prison service colonel saidlate on Wednesday.

Somalia's deputy prime minister and information minister,Ahmed Abdisalan, called for unity in the country, which isawash with arms. He said groups opposed to peace were behindthe attacks on humanitarian workers.

"We are saddened by the attacks on foreign and local aidworkers. As long as we are divided and still have arms in ourpossession, groups opposed to peace will take advantage of thechaos to inflict harm on aid workers," he said.

The killings and threats against humanitarian workers haveshocked U.N. agencies and aid groups and forced many toconsider suspending operations in the lawless nation, which hasnot had an effective central government since 1991.

In the latest incident of intimidation, the Elman Peace andHuman Rights group said it had been forced into hiding.

On Thursday, clashes between the rebels and Ethiopianskilled at least five people in the central town of Beledweyne.

More than 8,000 civilians have been killed and 1 millionuprooted since allied Somali-Ethiopian soldiers routed Aweys'sharia courts group from Mogadishu at the start of last year.

Aweys took control of the Alliance for the Re-Liberation ofSomalia (ARS), an umbrella group based in the Eritrean capital,on Tuesday after expelling the moderate Sheikh Sharif Ahmed forsigning a peace deal with the interim government.

On Wednesday, the African Union said a small peace force itsent to Mogadishu was unable to stabilise the situation andurged the United Nations to take over its duties.

(Writing by Jack Kimball; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

(For full Reuters coverage of Africa, visit,http://africa.reuters.com/)