Somali Opposition chief Calls for UN Peacekeeping force

Djibouti City, Djibouti
A key Somalia's opposition leader has called for the rapid deployment of United Nations peacekeepers to the war-wracked country, which has experienced an unending civil war for nearly 18 years now. Speaking at the conclusion of a nine-day committee meeting in Djibouti City, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, chairman of the opposition Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), also called for the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops as agreed in a peace deal signed between the opposition group and the country’s interim government in Djibouti last June. [PE]