Somali president: Military forces must ramp up fight against all-shabaab

Speaking at a ceremony for recently graduated government military officers held in Mogadishu, the president said that if Somali forces don’t act urgently in fighting against what he called al Qaeda’s international criminals who raided war-ridden Somalia, the nation will fall in hands of al Shabaab.
embattled president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, on Wednesday said that the military forces of Somalia should sacrifice themselves for both the transitional federal government and the existence of the Somali nation.Speaking at a ceremony for recently graduated military officers in Mogadishu, the president said that if Somali forces don’t act urgently in fighting against what he called al Qaeda’s international criminals who raided war-ridden Somalia, the nation will fall into the hands of al Shabaab.As the transitional government troops are facing insurgent fighters of al Shabaab, Ahmed indicated security forces need to do more than what they do right now, reiterating his call to defend the country against Islamists.With soldiers’ complaints continuing about delay and nonpayment of wages, Ahmed pledged that all TFG soldiers would be paid regularly and will get healthcare in a step that could provide further impetus for the performance of TFG military forces.For his part, Abdishakur Sheikh Hassan, Somalia’s interior minister, who also spoke at the event, stressed the entire Somali army should get ready for a new large-scale offensive against al Shabaab.In January 2009, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharma’rke, the former prime minister of Somalia, vowed to clear al Shabaab fighters from Somalia, but resigned in September last year after having failed to live up to his promise.The Somali government controls only a few blocks of Mogadishu. Its political antagonist, the hard-line al Shabaab group, runs most of south-central Somalia. AHL