Somali government officials and exiled Islamist opposition leaders are to hold face-to-face peace talks in Djibouti, the United Nations special envoy to the country said on Friday. Somalia has been wracked by conflict since 1991, with the capital, Mogadishu, plagued by political and civil unrest, food riots and attacks on Western aid agencies.
Somali Prime Minister Nur Hasan Husein on Friday announced a new downsized Cabinet after weeks of consultations. ”I announce the fifteen ministers and five assistants of my Cabinet now and I wish to nominate the members that are left soon,” the premier said in the town of Baidoa.
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/ 2 December 2007
Somalia’s new prime minister called on Sunday for dialogue with Islamist-led opponents to end an insurgency that a rights group says has killed nearly 6 000 civilians so far this year. In some of his first public comments on the conflict, Somalia’s new prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein, said he was open to talks.
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/ 11 November 2007
The toll from some of the worst fighting in Somalia’s war-wracked capital climbed to 59 on Saturday, as thousands fled the city fearing more clashes between Ethiopian forces and rebels, witnesses said. Residents recovered bullet-riven bodies, ripped limbs and shattered skulls on the blood-streaked streets.
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/ 9 November 2007
A bloody day of fighting on the streets of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, left at least 51 people dead in one of the goriest 24 hours the city has seen in months, residents and hospital sources said on Friday. Ethiopian troops backing the fledgling Somali government fought insurgents in an up-close battle.
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/ 30 October 2007
Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed called crisis talks on Tuesday to find a new prime minister as the country’s shaky government faced a mounting challenge from Islamist rebels.
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/ 29 October 2007
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 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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/ 23 October 2007
Somali authorities on Tuesday released the local head of the World Food Programme, who was seized nearly a week ago when government forces stormed a United Nations compound in Mogadishu. "He is safely back in the office. He was brought by some government officers as well as local UN staffers," a UN official said in Mogadishu.
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/ 11 October 2007
A suicide bomber drove a pickup truck filled with explosives into a Somali army base, killing himself and two others near a hotel where the prime minister set up temporary headquarters, officials said on Thursday. The explosion late on Wednesday, in the southern town of Baidoa, targeted a base manned mostly by Ethiopian troops.
Somalia’s prime minister has reached a truce with Mogadishu’s dominant clan, some of whose fighters had supported Islamist-led insurgents in battles with government troops and Ethiopian forces earlier this year. Hawiye clan elders met Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi amid tight security on Monday in the capital, which has been rocked by insecurity since January.
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/ 17 September 2007
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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/ 14 September 2007
Gun battles in Mogadishu killed at least six people early on Friday and residents said they feared Ramadan would bring no let up in a months-long insurgency that has battered the Somali capital.
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/ 13 September 2007
Somalia’s government on Thursday said a new opposition movement vowing war on Ethiopian troops in the Horn of Africa nation was a ”terrorist alliance” posing no real threat. Somali opposition figures forged the Alliance for the Liberation of Somalia on Wednesday in a move analysts said may boost Islamist-led insurgents fighting the interim government.
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/ 5 September 2007
Livestock exports and money sent home by Somalis abroad have propped up the Horn of Africa nation’s economy despite a war over the New Year that gave way to an Iraq-style insurgency, the World Bank said on Wednesday. Somalia’s entrepreneurs have learned to thrive despite a lack of government, feuding warlords and an Islamist-led guerrilla war.