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Africa Horn

Somali lawmakers approve enlargement of parliament

2009-01-27

(Xinhua) -- Somali parliamentarians meeting in Djibouti City has overwhelmingly endorsed the enlargement of the legislative assembly to include opposition members in accordance with a power sharing deal reached last year, reports reaching here said Monday. Somali lawmakers have held their session in the Djibouti People' s Assembly in the capital where 220 members of parliament converged to approve the crucial legislation that will pave the way for an inclusive parliament and a National Unity Government. Sheik Adan Madoobe, speaker of the parliament and the acting president of Somalia who chaired the session, announced after the vote on the enlargement motion that out of the 220 members present211 voted in favor of the motion, 6 voted against while three abstained. The parliament is expected to amend the country's interim charter to allow for the extension of the one-month deadline for the election of the president which will expire on Wednesday, after former Somali leader Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed resigned on December 29. Under an agreement reached between a major opposition faction, the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS), and the Somali transitional government, the membership of the current 275-member Somali parliament will be doubled to include 200 members from ARS and 75 from Somali civil society groups, women and diasporas. Reports from Djibouti say that the new 200 opposition members of parliament will be sworn in Tuesday while the remaining 75 will be included at a later date when their allocation is agreed upon. Meanwhile in Baidoa, tension mounts as uncertainty prevails following the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from the town which has been the seat of the Somali transitional parliament for the past three years. Two people have been killed and four others wounded after a shootout between Somali government forces and local militias vying for control of strategic locations as they prepare to confront a possible assault on the town by insurgent fighters stationed around it. Both Somali government officials and Islamist commanders have said they want peaceful resolution of the standoff in the town which is witnessing widespread looting of government properties including the presidential residence and parliament house.

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Africa Horn

Sheik Sharif returns to Somalia

2008-11-03

Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, Islamist leader of the opposition faction which recently signed a peace deal with the Somali transitional government in Djibouti, arrived, for the first time in nearly two years, in central Somalitown of Jawhar amid tight security by Islamist fighters, opposition spokesman said Saturday. The opposition leader along with a seven-member delegation arrived to meet with opposition figures inside Somalia and "explain to the Somali people the agreement reached" between the government and the opposition coalition known as the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS), Ahmed Abdulahi, ARS' Secretary for Information said. "We will be staying inside the country as long as it takes to meet all the relevant people in Somalia," Abdullahi told Xinhua by phone from Jawhar, the provincial capital of Middle Shabelle region, 90 km north of the capital Mogadishu. Thousands of cheering residents gathered along the roads leading from the airport to the city to give a rapturous welcome to Ahmed, who left the Horn of Africa country in early 2007 after his movement, the Islamic Courts Union, was driven out of power by allied Ethiopian and Somali government forces in December 2006. The Islamist opposition leader, considered as moderate, ... by whom? ... is expected to visit a number of other places in south and central Somalia where his faction is in control. Sheik Ahmed's moderate faction of the ARS, now based in Djibouti, late last month signed a ceasefire agreement and a power sharing deal after a number of other previous deals failed to stop the violence in the war-ravaged country. Under the agreement both the transitional government and the ARS called upon their supporters and the Somali population "to adhere and support this cessation of armed confrontation in the interest of the Somalia". The agreement also stipulates the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from specific areas in the capital Mogadishu and a central Somali town before their full withdrawal from Somalia. They have also agreed on "the early establishment of a Somali Unity Government". Other Somali insurgent groups, including the hard-line Al-Shabaab Islamist movement, oppose the agreement with the transitional government vowing they will continue to fight as long as the Ethiopian troops are in Somalia.

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Africa Horn

Somali Islamists Attack Ethiopian Army Convoy, Claim 12 Killed

2008-08-02

(Bloomberg) -- Islamist fighters in Somalia said they killed at least 12 Ethiopian soldiers and captured some of their weapons in a combined assault on an army convoy. The attack occurred at Jero Kulow, about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southwest of the capital, Mogadishu, yesterday, said Farhan Abdi Eelmoge, a spokesman for Jabha al-Islamia Somalia, a faction of the Islamic Courts Union. Colonel Dahir Mohamed Hersi, a spokesman for the Somali national army, didn't answer his mobile phone when called today for comment. ``Twelve Ethiopians were killed during the battle waged together by the Islamic Courts Union and our brothers Jabha Islamia al-Somalia,'' Sheikh Abdi Rihin Isse Adow, a spokesman for the Islamic Courts, said in a mobile-phone interview today. He wouldn't disclose his location. The Islamic Courts Union controlled parts of southern Somalia in 2006 before being ousted by United Nations-backed Transitional Federal Government soldiers and U.S.-supported Ethiopian troops. Yesterday's clash is the latest in a series of attacks by Islamists after last month's cease-fire between the government and the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia.

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Africa Horn

Roadside bomb kills four soldiers in Mogadishu

2008-06-23

(Xinhua) -- At least four Somali government soldiers were killed and four civilians were wounded after a roadside hit a military vehicle in southwest of the capital, Mogadishu, witnesses and local media reports said. The explosion ripped through a government military truck as it passed through a street in Darkinley district, killing four of the soldiers on board and wounded four civilians standing by the street, witnesses confirmed to Xinhua. Local media reported the same figures, adding that Somali government security forces cordoned off the area of the blast and carried out searches for suspected insurgents. The vehicle was completely burnt by the huge blast that rocked the southwestern part of the capital where many of the residents sought refuge as it was relatively calmer than other areas of the Mogadishu. Somali government officials were not readily available for comment on the latest attack and no group has so far claimed responsibility for the blast but insurgents opposed to the government and the presence of foreign forces in Somalia carry out near daily attacks on Somali and Ethiopian troops. The Somali transitional government and the a faction of the opposition coalition, the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia(ARS), signed a peace deal early this month but another faction of ARS and the hard-line Islamist group Al-shabaab boycotted the talks in Djibouti and rejected the agreement reached there. They vowed to continue their fight against Somali government security forces and the Ethiopian troops backing them. Under the agreement Ethiopian troops would withdraw in 120 days after the deployment of "a sufficient number of UN force."

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Africa Horn

Hope and Doubt Greet Peace Deal in Somalia

2008-06-12

Peace is no small feat in Somalia, and if the reaction to the accord struck on Monday night is any gauge, peace may still be a long way off. Chances are somewhere between minuscule and "no way in Hell." On “The so-called deal is rubbish and inconsequential,” Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, a strident Islamist leader, told The Associated Press. “It will not in any way result in peace.” Tuesday, militant Islamist leaders immediately rejected the deal, which had been signed by moderate Islamists and the beleaguered transitional government of Somalia. “The so-called deal is rubbish and inconsequential,” Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, a strident Islamist leader, told The Associated Press. “It will not in any way result in peace.” Instead, he said, the deal will bring more bloodshed. Usually I make a point of not agreeing with Sheikh Aweys, but I'll make an exception in this case. He was among the key Islamist figures who boycotted the peace talks, which had been organized by the United Nations to end the combat between Somalia’s transitional government and a determined insurgency. Moderate Islamist leaders, under the banner of the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia, have agreed to a cease-fire in return for Ethiopian troops’ being replaced by United Nations peacekeepers, though it is not clear when — or even if — that will happen. The deal was signed on Monday night in Djibouti, Somalia’s small, peaceful neighbor, which is considered neutral ground. People on the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia’s battered capital, seemed doubtful and hopeful. “There could be fighting from the hard-liners, but it won’t be the same as it used to,” said Hassan Gabre, a retired engineer. Peace is important, but Somalis desperately need government, too, he said.

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