Sharif Sheikh Ahmed

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Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in February 2009

Sharif Sheikh Ahmed or Sharif Sheikh Ahmad ( Somali Shariif Sheekh Axmed , Arabic الشيخ شريف شيخ أحمد al-Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad , DMG aš-Shaiḫ Šarīf Shaiḫ Aḥmad ; * July 25, 1964 in Shabeellaha Dhexe , Somalia ) was President of Somalia from 2009 to 2012. He is considered a comparatively moderate representative of Islamism in Somalia and was previously a leader of the Union of Islamic Courts and later the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia . It comes from the communities of Abgal- Hawiye .

Life

Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was born on July 25, 1964 in the Mahadday rural area of ​​the Shabeellaha Dhexe region of southern Somalia. He attended a Koran school there and an Egyptian-run school in Mogadishu . In the 1980s he studied geography and Arabic at the Kurdufan University in Sudan and in Libya .

In 1998 he returned to Somalia, where civil war had raged since 1991 . In 2002, in Jawhar , he became chairman of a local Islamic court, which was primarily concerned with petty crimes and disputes between families and business people. At times he worked with the warlord Mohammed Omar Habeb Dhere against the transitional government of Somalia , which was then trying to take control of Mogadishu from exile in Kenya .

Union of Islamic Courts

However, the alliance with Dhere did not last long, so Sharif Sheikh Ahmed Jawhar left, went to Mogadishu and there became a teacher at the Jubba Secondary School . When so-called freelancer militias kidnapped a 12-year-old student in 2003 in order to extort a high ransom from his family, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed turned to the Islamic movement, set up a local Sharia court in cooperation with the population and was closed its chairman elected. The court obtained the release of the boy and other abductees and the return of stolen vehicles. The Union of Islamic Courts was created through the merger of this court with four similar institutions in Mogadishu, of which Ahmed became chairman.

In 2006 the Union of Islamic Courts brought Mogadishu and large parts of the country under its control. Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was seen as a representative of the moderate, Hassan Dahir Aweis as a representative of the radical parts of the Union. As the “hardliners” gained the upper hand within the Union over time, Ahmed also intensified his rhetoric and once called on all Somalis to jihad against the opposing troops when the Somali transitional government and Ethiopian troops took military action against the Union .

exile

After the Union was ousted in late 2006 / early 2007, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed fled to neighboring Kenya , where he turned himself in to the police on January 21, 2007. He was later allowed to travel to Yemen . From mid-2007 he stayed, like other parts of the Union of Islamic Courts, in Asmara , Eritrea. There, Islamists and other opponents of the Somali transitional government formed the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) with the main goal of ending the Ethiopian military presence in Somalia, which was viewed as an occupation.

As chairman of the ARS, Sharif played a key role in the peace negotiations between the Somali interim government and the ARS in Djibouti in June 2008 , which led to the signing of a ceasefire agreement in October 2008 and, subsequently, to agreements on power-sharing and the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops.

Election of the President of the Transitional Government of Somalia

On January 31, 2009, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was elected as the new president by the Somali transitional parliament in Djibouti. He clearly prevailed against Maslah Mohamed Siad Barre - the son of the former president and dictator Siad Barre - and the incumbent Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein . As a moderate Islamist leader, Sharif is expected to be able to unite the divided civil war parties. However, the radical Islamist group al-Shabaab , which has brought large parts of southern Somalia under its control, has announced that it will continue to refuse to recognize the transitional government. On February 7th, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed went to Mogadishu for negotiations.

On September 10, 2012, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed lost a runoff election in the Somali parliament against Hassan Sheikh Mohamud , who was elected as the new President of Somalia.

Web links

Commons : Sharif Sheikh Ahmed  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Top Somali Islamist 'surrenders' . BBC News
  2. ↑ Somali Islamist travels to Yemen . BBC News
  3. ^ Armistice in Somalia . Der Tagesspiegel , October 26, 2008.
  4. ↑ Islamist leader Ahmed new President of Somalia . The press , January 31, 2009.
  5. ^ Somali MPs choose new president . BBC News
  6. ↑ AFP: Somalia's new president in Mogadishu for talks
  7. ^ Elections in Somalia: Hassan Sheik Mohamud is the new president. In: Spiegel Online . September 10, 2012, accessed September 7, 2013 .
personal data
SURNAME Ahmed, Sharif Sheikh
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Axmed, Shariif Sheekh (Somali)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Somali politician, leader of the Union of Islamic Courts in Somalia
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1964
PLACE OF BIRTH Shabeellaha Dhexe , Somalia