Somali Islamist leader vows to protect aid workers

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's new hardline opposition leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys has vowed to protect aid workers in the Horn of Africa nation where insecurity has stopped many groups from working. The United Nations said last week that recent killings and kidnappings of aid workers in Somalia threatened to wreck all efforts to end one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters. Aweys, an Islamist cleric who is on U.S. and U.N. lists of al Qaeda suspects, called on the international community to help his Eritrea-based opposition group expel Ethiopian forces supporting the country's fragile Western-backed government. Islamist insurgents have waged an Iraq-style insurgency of roadside bombs, mortar attacks and assassinations against the administration and its Ethiopian allies since early last year. But the rebels have... [read full story]