(Recasts with curfew lifted, PM Gedi) By Aweys Yusuf MOGADISHU, Sept 13 (Reuters) - The Somali government lifted a curfew in Mogadishu on Thursday to allow the Muslim population battered by a year-long insurgency to enjoy Ramadan. The government move was intended to give some much-needed relief to the one million or so residents of the coastal capital bearing the brunt of an Islamist-led insurgency against the government and its Ethiopian military backers. During Ramadan, Somalis go out in the evening to pray, eat at restaurants, and share meals overnight in family homes. "Cabinet met today and decided to lift the curfew on Mogadishu because of the holy month of Ramadan so that the Somali people can go freely to the mosques to pray," Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi told a news conference. The dusk-to-dawn curfew had been in place since June. It remains to be seen, however, if the near-daily attacks on government and Ethiopian positions will ease during Ramadan. There were, at least, no major incidents reported in Mogadishu as the Ramadan daylight fasting began on Thursday. Gedi had harsh words for this week's creation by Somali opposition figures, meeting in Eritrea, of a new movement called "The Alliance For The Liberation Of Somalia" vowing war on Ethiopian troops in Somalia. "The Somali government does not recognise the Asmara talks," he said, adding that host Eritrea was known internationally for "creating violence in the Horn of Africa". "TERRORIST ALLIANCE" Gedi said his government had been urging participants in the week-long Asmara talks, ranging from Islamist leaders to former government officials and lawmakers, to distance themselves from the new grouping. "We have been urging people who have been meeting there to leave," he said. And he was dismissive of the presence of militant Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys. "We see him as the world sees him," Gedi said of the cleric who is on U.S. and U.N. lists of terrorism suspects. Gedi's spokesman, Musse Kulow, said the group would have no influence on the insurgency. "We don't see them as a threat since they cannot add to or reduce the explosions already taking place in Mogadishu," he told Reuters. Kulow said the government welcomed the creation of independent parties. "But we will never accept a terrorist alliance that wants to use violence to gain any progress." The Asmara talks were due to end on Friday, with a possible announcement of the alliance's leadership. The formation of the alliance provides yet another bone of contention between long-time foes Ethiopia and Eritrea, analysts say, and is likely to push back any prospect of desperately needed reconciliation in Somali politics. "It certainly is not a step that will encourage a solution," David Shinn, a former U.S. envoy in the region, told Reuters. In Addis Ababa, a top adviser to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Eritrean efforts to destabilise the region would fail. "Ethiopia is in Somalia at the invitation of the internationally-recognised transitional federal government," Bereket Simon said. "It does not need a licence from terrorist groups to leave or stay in Somalia." Meles sent thousands of troops last year to help Somalia's government rout Aweys' Islamic Courts movement from Mogadishu. (Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed and Helen Nyambura in Nairobi, and Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa)
