MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - Thousands of Somalis on Friday marched to protest African Union plans to send peacekeepers to help ensure the safe return of a new government currently based in neighboring Kenya.
Some 25,000 men, women and children demonstrated in the capital, Mogadishu after Friday prayers, spurred on by Islamic clerics who are unhappy with plans to deploy the African force intended to help restore order.
Somalia has had no central government since 1991, when opposition leaders ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Then they turned on each other, deepening the anarchy in this nation of 7 million.
The influential clerics have been projecting themselves as an alternative to the numerous warlords running a patchwork of clan-based fiefdoms in Somalia and espouse a government based on fundamentalist Islam.
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBN2WZ5P3E.html
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