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/ 2 June 2008

UN to meet Somalia govt, opposition

The United Nations Security Council meets the key players in the Somalia conflict on Monday to try to persuade the disparate factions to cooperate and restore order to the desperately poor and lawless Horn of Africa country. Somalia has been without a central government since the toppling of a dictator in 1991.

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/ 1 June 2008

Somali insurgents fire mortars at president’s plane

Insurgents fired mortars at a plane that was due to take Somalia’s president to Djibouti, but he was unharmed and travelled to a meeting with a United Nations security council delegation, officials said on Sunday. President Abdullahi Yusuf was due to meet the delegation in Djibouti, where his interim government and opposition exiles are participating in peace talks.

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/ 26 May 2008

No solution but war, says Somali Islamist leader

There is ”no solution but war” to solve Somalia’s problems, and Somali Islamists must re-arm and fight, a long-time hard-line Islamist leader linked to al-Qaeda said on Monday. In a rare interview, Sheikh Hassan Abdullah Hersi al-Turki urged the United Nations not to send soldiers to shore up an African Union peacekeeping force.

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/ 11 May 2008

Rare Somalia talks make slow start, UN hopeful

Rare peace talks between Somalia’s interim government and opposition exiles have made a slow start in Djibouti, but a senior United Nations official said he was encouraged both sides had turned up. ”I am more than hopeful. The Somalis who I met today are committed to peace and reconciliation,” the UN envoy to Somalia told reporters in Djibouti late on Saturday.

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/ 30 March 2008

Death toll from Mogadishu market blasts hits 17

Hospitals in Mogadishu overflowed with the wounded on Sunday and the death toll from mortar strikes on the city’s sprawling main market reached at least 17. Scores of civilians at the Bakara Market were hurt on Saturday when troops positioned at the Villa Somalia presidential palace returned fire against Islamist insurgents who attacked it with mortar bombs, witnesses said.

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/ 29 March 2008

Troops shell Somali market, killing 11

At least 11 people were killed in Mogadishu on Saturday when troops at the Villa Somalia presidential palace returned fire against Islamist insurgents who attacked it with mortar bombs, witnesses said. President Abdullahi Yusuf was there at the time, an aide told Reuters, but no one in the hilltop compound was hurt.

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/ 18 January 2008

AU head wants extension for Somalia peace force

The African Union Commission’s chairperson recommended on Friday a six-month extension for a peacekeeping force in Somalia and criticised member states for failing to honour pledges for troops. A 1 800-strong AU Mission in Somalia has been carrying out peacekeeping duties in Mogadishu, where Islamist insurgents have been fighting the interim government.

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/ 7 December 2007

Somali president dismisses rumours of ill health

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf said on Friday he was in good health after recovering from a bout of pneumonia, and laughed off a flurry of reports he was near death. ”I’m fine, I am OK,” Yusuf said in an exclusive interview from his hospital bed in Nairobi. ”I had pneumonia, but the doctors have taken it out [treated it] and I am well now,” he said.

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/ 6 December 2007

Somali leader fine in hospital, off to UK

Somalia’s President Abdullahi Yusuf is recovering from bronchitis in a Nairobi hospital and will fly to Britain for a check-up on his liver transplant, the Somali ambassador to Kenya said on Thursday. Suggestions by some diplomatic sources that Yusuf was in a very serious condition were ”lies”, said envoy Mohamed Ali Nur.

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/ 5 December 2007

Somali leader in hospital as Islamist rejects talks

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf spent a second day in hospital on Wednesday with a condition some sources called very serious but an envoy said was a routine check-up for an old liver transplant. In a tumultuous week for Somali politics, an exiled Islamist leader rejected a call by Somalia’s new prime minister for talks to try to end 16 years of conflict.

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/ 4 December 2007

Somali president flown to hospital amid walkout

Turmoil struck the Somali government on Tuesday as a fifth minister resigned in a power-sharing dispute a day after being appointed, and the president was urgently flown to a hospital in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. A security official described President Abdullahi Yusuf (72) as being in a ”serious condition” when he arrived in Nairobi on Tuesday.

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/ 3 December 2007

Somalia needs more help, says UN

The United Nations’s top aid official, John Holmes, arrived in Somalia on Monday, calling for more to be done to help the Horn of Africa country where almost 6 000 civilians have been killed in fighting this year. UN officials say Somalia’s humanitarian crisis is Africa’s worst, with one million people displaced.

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/ 12 November 2007

Troops hunt insurgents in emptying Somali capital

Somali and Ethiopian troops shut down Mogadishu’s main market in a search for Islamist insurgents on Sunday after fighting that has killed at least 60 people and driven tens of thousands from the Somali capital. Rights groups have criticised the Ethiopians for failing to distinguish between civilian and insurgent targets.

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/ 29 October 2007

Somali PM resigns after feud with president

Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi resigned on Monday after a long feud with the president that frustrated Western backers and split the government while it faced an Islamist insurgency. With no sure candidate to replace him, it remained unclear whether Gedi’s departure would unify the interim government or set it down a new path of disarray.

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/ 29 October 2007

Somali Prime Minister Gedi to resign

Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi has arrived in Baidoa to resign in front of the Parliament later on Monday following a lengthy political feud with President Abdullahi Yusuf, officials and diplomats said. The Gedi-Yusuf split had weakened the government as it faced an Islamist-led insurgency this year.

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/ 17 September 2007

Somali leaders want Arab, African peacekeepers

Somali leaders meeting in Saudi Arabia said they wanted to replace foreign forces backing the interim government against rebels with Arab and African troops under the aegis of the United Nations. The pact came days after a rival meeting in Eritrea by an opposition alliance that included leaders of the Islamic courts movement.

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/ 12 September 2007

Somali opposition: ‘We are the future’

Somali opposition figures meeting in Eritrea united to form a new ”liberation” movement on Wednesday to seek a military or diplomatic solution to conflict in their homeland, a spokesperson said. The main aim of the organisation, called the Alliance for the Liberation of Somalia, is to secure the exit of Ethiopian troops who are backing the interim government in Somalia.