A hardline Somali Islamist leader Tuesday rejected a three-month truce reached between Mogadishu and its political foes, casting a damper on a fresh UN bid to bring peace to the shattered nation.
   
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, an influential cleric designated a terrorist by the United States for suspected links to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, said Monday's peace talks in Djibouti and the subsequent pact were "fruitless."
   
"I do not believe that the outcome of this conference will have any impact on the resistance in Somalia. We shall continue fighting until we liberate our country from the enemies of Allah," Aweys told Mogadishu-based Shabelle radio.
   
"The aim of the meeting was to derail the holy war in the country," added Aweys, a member of the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), an opposition umbrella group dominated by Islamists and based in the Eritrean capital Asmara.
   
Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein and ARS chief Sheikh Sharif Ahmed signed the accord late Monday after talks organised and mediated by the UN special envoy for Somalia Ahmedou Ould Abdallah.
   
While some Islamist leaders and clan leaders attended, Aweys and other hardline Islamists stayed away saying they would not take part unless Ethiopian troops backing government forces pulled out of Somalia.
   
The same hardliners, who also boycotted last year's failed peace meeting organised by the government in Mogadishu, also insisted the Djibouti conference was biased.
   
According to the accord, Ethiopian troops would withdraw after the UN deployed peacekeepers from countries friendly to Somalia -- excluding neighbouring states -- within 120 days after the armistice takes effect.
   
On May 15, the UN Security Council authorised a gradual return of UN staff to Somalia and possibly resulting in the deployment of peacekeepers, but did not set a timetable.
   
But Aweys said the new truce failed to set a deadline for the pullout of Ethiopian troops, who deployed at the end of 2006 and knocked out Islamists from south and central Somalia.
   
"The agreement does not offer a timetable of the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces. It is not clear when they will leave," said Aweys, a former army colonel who served at the frontline in the 1977-8 Somali-Ethiopian border war.
   
The African Union welcomed the truce and urged those holding out to join the talks.
   
The AU has deployed some 2,600 peacekeepers deployed in Somalia -- short of the pledged 8,000 troops -- but have failed to stem the rising tide of insurgency in the nation of 10 million.
   
But battle-weary Mogadishu residents downplayed the ceasefire announcement, insisting that Islamist fighters had to be incorporated if peace talks were to succeed.
   
"Do not sponsor peace talks without participation of the Shababs, otherwise it is like playing a tune that has no listeners," said Abdi Ali Mohamed, a taxi driver.
   
"There are still rough times and more bloodshed ahead. Peace is miles away."
   
School teacher Mukhtar Ahmed recalled a raft of similar accords that have failed in the past.
   
"It is simply the same as before. Expect no peace this time also," he concluded.
   
The Islamists have waged a guerrilla war since they were ousted early last year, which according to international rights groups and aid agencies has left at least 6,000 civilians dead and displaced hundreds of thousands.
   
The country has been plagued by an uninterrupted civil war since the 1991 overthrow of president Mohamed Siad Barre. A string of previous peace initiatives and truce deals have failed.
   
On Monday, the Somali rivals also agreed to facilitate unhindered passage of humanitarian supplies to around 2.6 million people in need of urgent food aid even though similar pledge on May 16 went unheeded.
   
The figure is expected to reach 3.5 million by the year-end because of a prolonged drought and spiralling inflation, according to the United Nations.