B D NarayankarMODERATE Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed was sworn in as Somalia'''s president on Saturday even as he had a tough job cut out to reunite Somalis.
After the fall of Somalian dictator Mohammad Siad Barre in 1991, the country has been under the grip of civil war and has witnessed 15 futile attempts in the past to reunite the countrymen.
With residents firing anti-aircraft missiles into the sky in celebration after a long vigil in front of the television or next to radios, there seems to be some signs of hope in Somalia's capital Mogadishu after Ahmed was elected president.
Ahmed had fled the country and set up the opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) with Islamist allies, while insurgents in the country began fighting to remove the Ethiopian troops, who finally pulled out this month.
Al Shabaab, which is on Washington's list of foreign terrorist groups, said just before the vote that it would start a new campaign of hit-and-run attacks on the government -- whoever came to power.
Some regional leaders and Western diplomats say al Shabaab is made up of little more than clan-based bandits using the banner of religion to justify their crimes.
In the past two years, more than 17,400 civilians have died during the insurgency, a third of the population now relies on food aid and some 2.5 million have been driven from their homes, a Somali human rights group said on Saturday.
The Islamist leader will fly on Sunday to the very country that booted him from office, as a president attending an African Union summit in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.
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