Sufi group vows to rid Somalia of radical Islamists

By Sahra Abdi

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A leader of a moderate Sufi militia group that signed a power-sharing deal with the Western-backed Somali government this month has vowed to rid the country of radical Islamists.

The government brought Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca on board ahead of an expected military push against hardline Islamist rebels threatening to topple the administration.

"Together, we are going to eliminate radical Islamists from the country. We will confront Shabaab directly not through the media," chairman Maalim Muhamud told Reuters late on Saturday.

Muhamud said his group, which controls large swathes of central Somalia, had the capacity with the government, to ruin al Shabaab, which professes loyalty to al Qaeda and holds vast areas in the south and the capital.

In January this year, al Shabaab, which seeks to impose a strict version of Islamic sharia law in Somalia, attacked Ahlu Sunna's positions in a bid to take control of strategic towns, but the Sufis defended them successfully.

Under the deal signed between the group and the government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Ahlu Sunna will get five ministerial posts and appoint the army's deputy chief of staff.

The Sufis' quarrel with the rebels is mainly ideological.

Somalia has a rich Sufi tradition going back more than five centuries. Sufis have been angered by the desecration of graves, the beheading of clerics, and bans on celebrating the birth of the Prophet imposed by the hardline Wahhabi insurgents.