JEDDAH, 5 April 2004 — The interior minister of the northern region of breakaway Somaliland, Ismail Aden Osman, has disclosed that a local group of militants linked to Al-Qaeda network had carried out the recent killings of foreign aid workers in the area, press reports said.

A Kenyan aid worker was killed and a German was injured in the region recently. Both of them were working for the German Agency for Technical Assistance and were attacked near the town of Berbera.

The minister said five suspects were arrested for questioning. He said the suspects had told interrogators all the attacks were launched by members of the same extremist group.

“The detainees said, ‘our aim is to kill every agency (humanitarian) worker for we believe that they should not remain in this country.

The detainees told the investigating committee that every region in Somaliland has an Al-Qaeda leader,” Osman was quoted as saying.

He said the suspects may also have links to a Somali militant group called Al-Itihad Al-Islamiya. He said the militants’ base was in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. “They (the detainees) confessed that the SOS teachers were targeted because they were spreading (fundamentalist) Christianity,” Osman said. The minister added that the detainees had told interrogators they did not know the names of their commanders; they knew only their immediate superior, for the sake of operational security.

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For the first time in Somalia, violations of press freedom will be reported, a statement said. The Eastern Media Institute (EAMI), a Somali non-governmental organization with support from the Danish agency — International Media Support, has formed a network of five correspondents who will report on such violations in Somalia.

The correspondents will be based in Mogadishu. “Before the formation of this group there was no systematic gathering of information relating to press freedom violations in Somalia.

EAMI plans to look for opportunities to expand the monitoring network to cover southern regions as well as the regional administration of Puntland in northeastern Somalia, where relations between media and local government are tense,”EAMI

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Thousands of Somalis have demonstrated in Mogadishu’s main soccer stadium, demanding that the country’s warlords hasten the ongoing peace talks in Kenya, media reports said. The demonstrators urged warlords who have boycotted the talks to respect an earlier agreement signed on Oct. 27, 2002, in which they committed themselves to a ceasefire and promoting the peace process.

“The message from the demonstrators was that the warlords have to respect agreements and return to the talks. We see the conference as the best option for the Somali people,” said Abdullahi Shirwa, one of organizers of the demonstration .

A peace message from the Civil Society in Action, a coalition of 56 non-governmental organizations, professional bodies, youth and women’s groups, was read out during the demonstration.

The message urged the warlords to cease hostilities and allow peace to return to the country. A number of faction leaders walked out of Somali peace talks in Nairobi, and started holding meetings in March in the town of Jowhar, 90 km north of Mogadishu.

The talks, which are being sponsored by the Inter Governmental Authority on Development, started on Oct. 15, 2002.