Abdullah Ali Afrah known as Asparo has reportedly been killed during a clash with African peacekeeping forces in Mogdisho.

(Mogadishu, July 03,  2008 Ceegaag Online)

Abdullah Ali Afrah known as Asparo, who was a Canadian citizen and held a key position in a Somali insurgent group has reportedly been killed yesterday during a clash with  Ethiopian troop convoy in Mataban, 400 kilo-metres north of the capital, Mogadishu.

Mr. Afrah, a Canadian citizen, was a senior advisor to the Islamic Courts Union, Canadian officials have been trying to verify the reported death but Ottawa has no official presence in Somalia. Attempts to call Mr. Afrah's mobile phone were unsuccessful.

After the National Post first revealed the Canadian's role in the Somali insurgency in 2006, Mr. Afrah told the newspaper in a telephone interview that if gays and lesbians can do what they want in Toronto, then Muslims should be free to live as they want in Somalia.

He also called the leader of the outlawed Somali terrorist group Al-Ittihad Al-Islam "a good Muslim" and said the Taliban in Afghanistan were just trying to "enjoy Islam, the Islamic principles."

Somalia has been a lawless wasteland since 1991. In 2006, a hardline group called the Islamic Courts Union emerged from the chaos and seized Mogadishu.

The country's United Nations-backed transitional government, supported by neighouring Ethiopia, mounted a major offensive and ousted the Islamists that December.

Since then, there has been widespread fighting as Somali, Ethiopian and African Union troops have tried to restore order, while the Islamists have mounted an Iraq-style guerrilla campaign.

Canada has the largest ethnic Somali population outside Africa, and while most shun extremism, a few have left Toronto and Ottawa to fight for the Islamic Courts Union.

Somali and Ethiopian officials claim to have killed several Islamist fighters who were carrying documents such as passports, driver's licences and even bus passes that identified them as Canadians.

Mr. Afrah was born in Mogadishu and moved to Canada in the 1980s, where he apparently earned the nickname Aspro by selling aspirin. He ran a corner store and worked as a carpenter before opening the Canadian branch office of Al-Barakaat, a money-transfer business whose Somali offices have been blacklisted for terrorist financing.

"I, as everybody else, I have been working and trying to make [a] good life. I tried my best and, when I finished my intention to stay there, I just moved back to Somalia," he said in the interview.

Although he was not known as a religious man in Toronto, after he returned to Mogadishu in the late 1990s he became second deputy chairman of the Shura Council of the Islamic Courts Union, whose leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aways is on Canadian and UN terrorist lists.

A former Somali rebel told the Post last year he had seen Aspro at an ICU training camp in Mogadishu firing an AK-47 rifle. The witness said Aspro's wife was with him.

The participation of Canadians in the fighting has been noted in intelligence reports written by Ottawa. Officials fear the veteran insurgents might return to Canada, causing security problems similar to those posed by volunteer fighters who trained in Afghanistan.

The Somali insurgents watch tapes of Osama bin Laden as part of their training and have been posting messages on the Internet portraying their fight as part of a global holy war against "Crusaders."

The United States has taken an active role in the conflict, launching several missile strikes into Somalia that have killed, among others, Aden Hashi Ayro, the leader of the ICU's youth militia, the Shabab. Another missile strike targeted a suspect in the 1998 bombings of the U. S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Source: National Post

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