The Islamist group which last month ordered the closure of the main airport in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, said on Thursday it is ready to rescind its decision after negotiations about it.
The Al-Shabaab Islamist movement last month threatened to shoot down any aircraft using the airport, which they said was being used to bring in military supplies for Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers which they have been battling for nearly the past two years.
"Our decision to close the airport is not revealed in Qur'an but can be rescinded if people discuss about it," Sheik Muqtar Robow Abu Mansuur, spokesman for the group, told reporters in a telephone news briefing. "It is the interest of the people that we are fighting for."
The threat by the Al-Shabaab group to shoot down airlines using the airport was opposed by revered local Hawiye clan elders and other Somali insurgent groups including the Islamic Courts Union, a major group that controls central Somali regions and, unlike Al- shabaab, has entered into peace talks with the Somali transitional government.
Nearly a hundred and fifty civilians have been killed and more than three hundred others wounded as a result of heavy shelling between African Union forces guarding the airport and the Al- shabaab group which attacked the airport with mortar shells every time a plane landed since Sept. 16 when the group issued its threat.
The African Union peacekeepers and Somali government forces on their part shelled in residential areas around Mogadishu's main Bakara market, which is alleged being used by fighters to launch mortars attack. Most of the civilian fatalities occurred in and around the market.
No commercial flight has landed in Mogadishu airport since the Al-Shabaab group issued its threat but several planes for the Somali transitional government and African Union peacekeeping forces have used it, prompting deadly exchange of heavy artillery and mortar shells between fighters and African Union peacekeepers.