Sunday, September 16, 2007
Ahmed flew into the Red Sea city of Jeddah accompanied by Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi, parliament speaker Shaikh Aden Mohamed Nur and tribal chiefs, the agency said. It reported that the Somali leaders planned to sign a document related to the reconciliation conference, but did not give any details. The conference wrapped up in Mogadishu on August 30 with no breakthrough on ending the fighting in the country and in the absence of opposition Islamists. Top Somali opposition figures held their own congress in Eritrea and on Friday chose senior Islamist leader Shaikh Sharif Shaikh Ahmed as chairman of a new anti-Ethiopian alliance. Shaikh Sharif was the number two of the Islamic Courts Union, which had controlled large parts of Somalia before being ousted by Ethiopian and Somali government troops earlier this year. The opposition figures who met in Eritrea—Ethiopia’s arch-foe—had boycotted Somalia’s clan reconciliation conference held by the transitional government and backed by the international community. The government has blamed Islamists for deadly guerrilla-style attacks in Mogadishu against government targets, Ethiopian troops and African Union peacekeepers, which happen almost daily. Since the ouster of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia has had no central authority and has defied several initiatives aimed at ending bloody tribal feuds and restoring stability. Saudi Arabia has over the years hosted many reconciliation meetings, including between Lebanese and Afghan rival factions, as well as Iraqi Muslim clerics and earlier this year the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas factions. Source: AFP, Sept 16, 2007