MOGADISHU, Apr 19, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Hezbul Islam (Islamic Party), one of the armed opposition groups in Somalia, on Sunday welcomed as a step forward the vote by the Somali parliament to endorse the implementation of the Islamic sharia law in the war-torn east African country.
The parliament on Saturday voted unanimously to introduce the sharia law in Somalia.
Hezbul Islam, which split into two factions over peace with the government, has been opposed to the Somali government and has been fighting government forces and the African Union peacekeeping troops in Mogadishu.
The move to welcome is seen as significant and unprecedented since the group previously said the current government is unfit to govern the country by sharia.
"This is a welcome step and we expect the group's parliament to proceed with the implementation because voting to introduce is one thing but implementing is another," Muse Arale, spokesman for the Hezbul Islam faction led by Omar Iman Abukar, told Xinhua.
The other major armed group, the Al-Shabaab Islamist movement which controls much of southern and central Somali, has yet to react to the approval by the parliament for implementation of the Sharia, a key demand of the group.
Opposition commanders, particularly those of the hard-line Al- Shabaab group, have previously dismissed the plan for lawmakers to introduce the Sharia as "conspiracy against the Islamist fighters and their cause."