Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Mansur

Sheikh Mukhtar Robow (or Abu Mansur) is a leader and spokesman for Somalia's "Young Mujahideen Movement."

Early life

Mukhtar Robow was born in the 1960s in the Bardale district, in the province of Bay in southern Somalia. He studied at the local Koranic school and later continued his religious education in the mosques of Mogadishu and his home region. A member of the Rahanwein clan, present particularly in the Baidoa region, and more specifically of the Leysan sub-clan, Mukhtar Robow also studied Islamic law in the 1990s at the University of Khartoum.

He subsequently returned to Mogadishu and worked for the Al-Haramein Saudi foundation, which was later accused by the United States of having links with Islamic terrorists. He was then teaching Islamic education to the orphans the foundation was looking after. His Arabic nickname "Abu Mansur" reinforces the theory that he has frequented Middle East radical Islamists.

He served as the Deputy Commander of the Islamic Courts Union, which controlled much of the south of Somalia. A hardline and radical Islamist who fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan in the early 2000s.

External links

* [http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071009/wl_africa_afp/somaliaunrestislam_071009135318 Somali Islamist leader vows struggle against "Christian crusading terrorists"] "Agence France-Presse", October 9, 2007