Over a thousand Somali Muslims demonstrated in Minneapolis yesterday in favor of the Dark Ages Islamist regime in Somalia; the Star Tribune report has a typically ridiculous headline: Area Somalis want peace for homeland.

Sure, they want “peace”—as long as that peace involves Islamist rule. And if the US won’t support that goal, it’s because we’re suffering from “Islamophobia.”

More than a thousand Somalis gathered in Minneapolis on Saturday to call for Ethiopian troops to withdraw immediately from Somalia.

Their protest capped a week in which transitional government troops retook Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, with the backing of Ethiopian infantrymen.

The U.S. government “gave the green light” to Ethiopia to work in concert with the transitional federal government in Somalia, and that action was “totally wrong,” said Hassan Mohamud. He is the president of the Somali Institute for Peace and Justice in Minneapolis, which organized Saturday’s rally.

“We ask the president of the United States, Mr. Bush, and his administration to stop supporting the terrorists. Ethiopian troops are terrorists,” Mohamud said to a cheering crowd.

Somali men, women and children gathered Saturday morning in Peavey Park in Minneapolis, and they carried an array of signs. Some said “No more war” and “Islam is the solution.” …

Somalia has not had a stable government in 15 years, but many attendees at the rally said that the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) had brought some peace to the country during the past six months.

When that Islamic group took over the capital in June, many people were optimistic about the future, said Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in Minneapolis.

“They brought back security,” Jamal said in a telephone interview. “We were all hoping that the moderates would be able to take the lead in the organization of the UIC. But unfortunately, the radicals hijacked the process.” [Funny how that always seems to happen. —ed.] …

A member of the Somali Institute for Peace and Justice, Abdul Mohamed of Minneapolis, said the military advances last week by Ethiopian troops created “one of the worst moments in Somali history.”

Mohamed disagrees with U.S. policy in Somalia, which he said is driven by “Islamophobia.”