MOGADISHU, 12 July 2005 — Gunmen in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu overnight shot dead an outspoken Somali aid worker and peace activist, who worked with International Crisis Group (ICG), in the shattered African nation, witnesses said yesterday.
They said about six heavily-armed gunmen raided the home of Abdulkadir Yahya Ali, co-founder and director of the Center for Research and Dialogue (CRD), tied up watchmen and disconnected telephone lines.
They hauled Ali out of his house in the capital’s Daynille residential district, shot him dead and made off with his laptop computer, neighbors said..
“The gunmen tied him up and shot him in full view of his wife,” said one witness.
It was not clear why he was killed, but humanitarian workers have increasingly been targeted in lawless Somalia, whose government collapsed in 1991 when dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was toppled.
Ali worked closely with the Brussel-based ICG, which on Sunday warned in a new report, “Counter-Terrorism in Somalia: Losing Hearts and Minds?” that a new group of Al-Qaeda-linked extremists, blamed for the kidnapping of foreign aid workers, has got a foothold in Somalia.
“He worked with ICG as a fixer and a consultant,” ICG’s researcher Matt Bryden said in Nairobi. “But he was not directly involved in the research of this report.”
The United Nations condemned the killing and said the fragile country had lost a notable personality, expecially when factions within a new transitional federal government are wrangling over which town should host it.
“We are shocked and dismayed by this assassination and send our sincere condolences to his family and friends,” UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Maxwell Gaylard said in a statement.
“Yahya was a committed advocate for peace and reconciliation, and his optimism never faltered. This is a great loss to Mogadishu and Somalia at this particular time when people of his courage and tenacity are most needed,” he added.
Somali watchers speculated that Ali’s uncompromising position on restoration of stability in the country might have cost him his life.
“He was an outspoken peace activist. Maybe some people thought it was not appropriate to advocate in favor of the government of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed,” said an official from the Somali government.
Yusuf strongly opposes the Mogadishu warlords who want the government to be set up in the unstable bullet-scarred capital.
He is currently based in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, which he controlled before he came to office last October.
The murdered Ali’s CRD is an affiliate of the Wartorn Societies Project International (WSP), which promotes peace initiatives in countries ravaged by conflicts.
