MONDAY, 6.30PM:
THE strategic Somali town of Baidoa was on Monday once again in the hands of the militias of Hussein Mohamed Aidid, following a weekend of fighting.
But the militias’ opponents, the Rahanwein Resistance Army, claim still to control the town’s airport.
Baidoa is 150km north of Mogadishu and was the proposed venue for a national reconciliation conference in December. The RRA and other factions have refused to attend any conference unless Aidid first withdraws his militias, which he has not done. The RRA and others have since clashed repeatedly over the town. Angered at being pushed out of the town after fighting which began towards the end of May, the RRA attacked a smaller settlement south of the town.
The conference, most recently scheduled for February 15, has been postponed three times now, and there is no planned date for it at the moment.
Somalia has been without central government since clan-based faction leaders began internecine warfare after toppling dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in January 1991.