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Note: The following post is a quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2235610/posts

Somali President Says Piracy Solution on Land Not Sea
AFP ^
Posted on 04/22/2009 4:29:41 PM PDT by nickcarraway

Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed told reporters in Cairo on Wednesday that the best way to counter piracy off the war-torn African country’s coast was to equip and train Somali police.

Ahmed, in Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, warned against US military action against the pirates.

“We advise against resorting to (US military strikes) and rather to focus on finding a comprehensive solution,” he said, adding that Somalia’s piracy was the result of the loss of “security and stability” in his country. The new US administration has pledged to step up the fight against pirates from Somalia after a US cargo ship was seized earlier this month.

“The pirates live on land... and therefore confronting them begins where they live, and that can be achieved through strengthening the abilities of Somalia’s police,” Ahmed said.

He said that under the Islamic Courts, the Islamist movement which controlled the government in Mogadishu from 2006 until it was ousted a year later by Ethiopian troops, the pirates had been “finished off.”

Ahmed, a former Islamist rebel leader, was elected in January and agreed in February to proposals by leaders mediating between his government and Islamic hardliners for a truce and the implementation of Islamic sharia law.

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