MOGADISHU, July 2: Somalia’s powerful religious movement on Sunday distanced itself from Osama Bin Laden’s view that any deployment of foreign troops to the Horn of Africa country would be part of a crusade to crush Islamic rule.

“Osama Bin Laden is expressing his views like any other international figure. We are not concerned about it,” Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the moderate former leader of the group, told reporters in the capital Mogadishu.

“The suggestions can come from anyone in the world but the Somali people have the right for self-determination of their nation.”

A purported audio recording by Osama on Saturday warned the United States and other countries against sending troops to Somalia.

Osama urged Somalis to back the religious movement and to fight Somalia’s interim President Abdullahi Yusuf, warning that supporting Yusuf or international forces would turn Muslims into ‘infidels.

The interim government dismissed Osamas comments.

“Osama bin Laden is not responsible for Somalia, his mission for Somalia is to see continued conflict,” Hussein Aideed, the interior minister and deputy prime minister, told Reuters by phone from Baidoa, the seat of the interim government.

“The transitional government will do everything to ensure the terrorist threat in Somalia or the region is uprooted.”—Reuters