President to lead armed convoy
2005-07-08 14:52
Mogadishu - Somalia's transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed plans to lead an armed convoy from his northeastern stronghold south to secure the central town of Jowhar as an undisputed seat of his homeless government, said senior Somali officials on Thursday.
They said in a bid to gain the upper hand in a bitter conflict with Mogadishu-based warlords who insisted the administration base itself in the capital, Yusuf intended to travel by road in the coming days from his current base of Bossaso in Puntland to join Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi in Jowhar.
An official in Yusuf's entourage said: "The president will definitely move to Jowhar", adding that Yusuf would use the trip to recruit foot soldiers he deemed critical to establishing the authority of the government in the lawless nation.
Local clans, militia chiefs
The official said: "On the way, he will try to get fighters from local militia commanders."
A second official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the plans, but declined for security reasons to say exactly when the president would leave on the 1 050km trip which was likely to further antagonise the warlords in Mogadishu.
Analysts said although the stretch of road between Bossaso and Jowhar was controlled by local clans and militia chiefs generally supportive of Yusuf and Gedi, the Mogadishu factions command considerable mobile firepower and could seek to disrupt the trip.
Jowhar was 90km north of the capital and the pro-Yusuf warlord who controlled the town, Mohamed Omar Habeb, said in late June that Mogadishu-based militias were preparing to attack him.
Country's most powerful warlords
His assertion was pointedly not denied in the capital, where the speaker of the Somali parliament, numerous lawmakers and many of the country's most powerful warlords had established a rival seat of the government to Jowhar.
Yusuf and Gedi maintained that their administration, which was created last year in neighbouring Kenya and remained holed up in exile in Nairobi until mid-June, could not move to bullet-scarred Mogadishu for security reasons.
Instead, they had proposed setting up shop in Jowhar and the town of Baidoa 250km south of Mogadishu.
But, the parliament speaker, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, and the Mogadishu warlords fiercely opposed them and Baidoa was no longer a feasible option for relocation since anti-Yusuf militias took control of the town in March.
- SAPA