PRESS TV

A senior leader of a Sufi group in Somalia has vowed to rid the country of extremists with Wahhabi tendencies who are threatening to topple the country's administration.

"Together, we are going to eliminate radicals from the country. We will confront the al-Shabab directly not through the media," Reuters quoted Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama'a chairman Maalim Muhamud as saying on Sunday.

The al-Shabab — the military offshoot of the Council of Islamic Courts — are involved in fighting against the Somali government and African Union troops in the restive capital, Mogadishu.

The government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed has recently brought Ahlu Sunnah on board ahead of an expected military push against the militants. The Sufi group controls large swathes of central Somalia.

Muhamud claimed that his group had the capacity with the government, to defeat the al-Shabab, who hold vast areas in the south of the country and the capital.

The Sufis have expressed serious concerns over the desecration of graves, the beheading of clerics, and bans on celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) imposed by extrimistss.

Wahhabism is a militantly puritan interpretation of Islam devised in the 18th Century in the Najd region of Arabia by Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab.