Somali police, army chiefs fired
2009-12-06 18:22
Mogadishu - Somalia's police and army chiefs have been sacked after failing to crush a months-old nationwide insurgency by radical Islamist groups, a government spokesperson said on Sunday.
Former warlord Colonel Abdi Hasan Qeybdid was replaced by Major General Ali Mohamed Hasan - also known as Ali Madobe - as police commissioner.
Yusuf Dhumaal was replaced by Lieutenant General Mohamed Gele Kahiye at the helm of the troubled country's armed forces.
"The prime minister announced the replacement of the police commissioner and the commander of the armed forces in front of the cabinet members in his office today," spokesperson Abdi Haji Gobdon told reporters.
Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke and President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed had been discussing a reshuffle of the security apparatus for two weeks, sources close to the president told AFP.
The new appointments come three days after a suicide bomber blew himself up at a medical student graduation ceremony in a Mogadishu hotel, killing 24 people, including four ministers.
The internationally backed government blamed Islamist insurgents but both the al-Qaeda-linked Shebab and their Hezb al-Islam allies denied any involvement, instead pointing to rivalries within state security.
"The president has been talking with his prime minister and security officials recently and he is eager to bring new faces to the security apparatus," Colonel Mohamed Hashi a senior security official, told AFP.
"I think the new security officials will come with a new strategy," he said.
"The government is planning to launch a country-wide offensive against the rebels after the newly named security officials take power, but I cannot say when," a security official close to the president told AFP by phone on condition of anonymity.
Sharif, a moderate Islamist cleric who spearheaded the opposition to Ethiopia's two-year occupation of Somalia, was elected president in January and was then perceived by many as the best chance to reconcile the country.
He failed to bring hardline Islamists back into the political fold and on May 7 the Shebab and Hezb al-Islam groups launched a bruising military campaign to oust him from power.
Government forces have since failed to pin the rebels back and, with the support of African Union peacekeepers, control little more than a few blocks around the presidential compound in Mogadishu.
- SAPA