Sunday, September 02, 2007
"Parliament has summoned the three to answer questions on what they are doing to end insurgency and crime," deputy parliamentary speaker Mohamed Omar Talha told journalists in the central city of Baidoa.
Somali police chief Abdi Hassan Awale Qeybdid, National Security Agency chief Mohamed Warsame Darwish and Mayor Mohamed Said Habeb are expected to arrive soon in Baidoa, where the 275-member assembly is based, he added.
Joint Ethiopian and Somali forces and African Union peacekeepers have failed to end daily guerrilla-style attacks in Mogadishu that are blamed on Islamist militants.
Years of clan bickering exploded with the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and spawning a deadly power struggle that has defied numerous attempts to restore peace.
A three-year-old interim government has failed to exert its tenuous control beyond a few pockets held by allied factions, increasing fears by western intelligence that the nation might become a haven for extremists sympathetic to al-Qaeda.
Talks aimed at uniting feuding clans and factions ended last week in Mogadishu with failure, prompting Western diplomats to call for a fresh and all-inclusive dialogue to save the nation from deeper turmoil.
Islamist leaders, who boycotted the six-week conference, have vowed to widen their insurgency until Ethiopian forces deployed to bolster the government withdraw.
Aid groups say widespread insecurity has choked delivery of humanitarian supplies to around 1.5 million people threatened by shortages mainly in southern Somalia.
Source: AFP, Sept 02, 2007