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Somalia

Somali lawmakers arrive for historic parliament meeting

By Guled Mohamed
BAIDOA, Somalia, Feb 23 (Reuters)

  • Lawmakers arrived in the Somali town of Baidoa on Thursday for the first meeting of the country's parliament on home soil, days after heavy clashes in the capital Mogadishu underscored the tough challenges ahead.

About 50 of the 275 members of the legislature swept into Baidoa in a convoy of cars and pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machineguns and manned by militiamen, ahead of the assembly's historic Feb. 26 session in the south-central town.

Rival factions in Somalia's interim administration, formed in the relative safety of neighbouring Kenya in late 2004, last month raised hopes of ending anarchy in the country when they agreed on a time and place for Sunday's meeting.

But heavy fighting in Mogadishu -- described by residents as the worst in recent memory -- has once again highlighted the general lawlessness in the Horn of Africa country, which has been without a functioning government for the last 15 years.

Residents said about 38 people died in clashes that began on Saturday between militia loyal to Mogadishu's Islamic courts and a newly formed coalition of nearly all the city's major warlords, dubbing itself the Mogadishu Anti-Terrorism Coalition.

Many of the victims were civilians.

It was not immediately clear what sparked the fighting. But a low-level conflict has been brewing between Islamist groups and some warlords in the new coalition who are known to sell counter-terrorism information to Western governments, including the United States.

That has led to isolated assassinations, particularly against former military or police officers, in the last year.

By Tuesday night, residents said relative calm had returned to the port city of one million.

"Fighting has ceased. I don't know if it (the calm) will continue, but elders from both sides are meeting," said Abdullhi Sheikh Hassan, a member of the anti-terrorism coalition.

Each side blamed the other for the hostilities. Sharia courts function unofficially in part of Mogadishu and are the only form of semi-organised justice for the city.

Fighting among Somalia's myriad of clans has been common since warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and took over the nation of about 10 million.

The transitional government has proved fragile and fractious and has so far been unable to rein in the powerful warlords and their militias, and disagreed over where the government should initially be based inside Somalia.

But its two main factions moved last month to end the rift that has paralysed Somalia, agreeing to the date and place of parliament's first meeting in the country. Baidoa was seen as neutral ground and a compromise solution.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Ali Bile in Mogadishu)