Somali insurgents threaten revenge on US over death of al-Qaida leader

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A US airstrike that killed the suspected al-Qaida leader in Somalia brought warnings of vengeance from Islamic insurgents and the threat of a boycott that could jeopardize peace talks with the U.N.-supported government. The biggest alliance supporting Somalia's Islamic insurgency said it might pull out of planned May 10 talks on escalating fighting and a humanitarian crisis that has caused thousands of civilian deaths and displaced hundreds of thousands over the past year. "The US strike can undermine the U.N.-sponsored peace parlay," said Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, exiled chairman of the Alliance for Liberation and Reconstitution of Somalia. "We will reconsider taking part ... due to the US military attack," he said in a telephone interview from Cairo, Egypt.