20100926
RFI

A moderate Islamist party has pulled out of the Somali government days after the country's prime minister quit. The Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca announced on Saturday that it has withdrawn from the administration, with whom it signed a power sharing deal in March.



The militia's spokesman, Sheikh Abdullahi Sheikh Abu Yusuf said the group had left because the government had failed to meet certain agreements reached when they agreed to join.

The group also accused the government of planning to abolish it.

Berouk Mesfin, Somali specialist at the Institute of Security Studies, says Ahlu Sunna has always had an uneasy relationship with the Transitional Federal Government, having assumed the TFG would give them some of the top government and military positions.

"Their focus was on getting into an alliance with an internationally-backed government, that they would also get some funding and more support," he says, "but the mainstay of Ahlu Sunna is Ethiopian support, so they didn't have that much need for the alliance."

Ahlu Sunna added that it would continue fighting against the al-Shebab and Hizbul Islam in the areas they control.