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Aydid accuses TNG of terrorist links

    NAIROBI

    Mogadishu faction leader Husayn Aydid has accused the Transitional National Government (TNG) of having links with Osama Bin Laden, widely believed to have been behind the recent terrorist attacks in the US, the Mogadishu daily 'Ayaamaha' reported on Tuesday. Aydid had said in an interview with Radio France International that the TNG was supported by Bin Laden, the paper said. According to Aydid, most of the members of the Transitional National Assembly (TNA) and TNG were members of Al-Ittihad al-Islami, one of the groups whose assets the US government intended to freeze, said 'Ayaamaha'. Aydid has been in Baidoa, 240 km southwest of Mogadishu, since July, local sources confirmed to IRIN.

    The TNG has dismissed the charge as "baseless and unfounded". The TNG Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galayr said in a press statement that those who were disseminating such reports wanted to "tarnish the good name of Somalia by way of innuendoes". Aydid was himself accused of having links with Bin Laden in 1999, when he was warned by US intelligence to stop supplying arms to Al-Ittihad when it was fighting Ethiopian-backed troops in southern Somalia, diplomatic sources told IRIN. [For IRIN interview with Aydid on issues regarding Al-Ittihad and Bin Laden see http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/cea/countrystories/somalia/19990504.htm]

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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