NAIROBI (Reuters) - A hardline Islamist leader rejected on Tuesday a U.N.-brokered peace pact signed in Djibouti by the Somali government and some opposition figures, and vowed that the war would continue.
"We don't see that as a peace deal, we see it as a trap,"Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys told Reuters by phone from Eritrea.
"We encourage the insurgents and the Somali people not tobe tired of combating the enemy."
Somalia's interim government and some members of the exiledopposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS)signed a deal late on Monday calling for the deployment of U.N.peacekeepers and agreeing to a ceasefire after one month.
But with some senior members of the ARS, including clericAweys, boycotting the talks, and fighters on the ground alsosaying they would not recognise them, few believe this pactwill bring peace to Somalia after 18 years of civil conflict.
The sticking point is the presence of Ethiopian troops inSomalia, who are fighting with the government againstIslamist-led insurgents.
"We have no choice but to continue to fight the Ethiopiansand the other foreign troops," Aweys added.
The African Union (AU) has 2,200 peacekeepers in Somalia,but they have done little to stem the violence and have beentargeted themselves. The AU wants the U.N. to take over.
"U.N. peacekeepers could not be neutral, and we believethat they serve the American government," Aweys said.
(Reporting by Aweys Yusuf; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne;Editing by Charles Dick)
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