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Embattled Somali President Returns to Puntland Region
 Embattled Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed yesterday arrived in Bossaso in the northeastern Puntland region, where he was the warlord before becoming head of state last year, officials said. Yusuf arrived in Bossaso from Yemen, where talks with Parliament Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden aimed at unblocking a standoff in the relocation of the transitional federal government from exile in Kenya collapsed. The president had left Kenya on June 13, ostensibly for Jowhar, about 90 km (55 miles) north of Somalia's capital Mogadishu, but instead went neighboring Djibouti and then Qatar.Yusuf has only visited Somalia once before since he was elected by the exiled Parliament in the Kenyan capital in October 2004. In February he came on a fact-finding mission to review the state of security in the shattered African nation. He is expected eventually in Jowhar, where Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi and some government officials have settled. Yusuf's plan to divide the government between the towns of Baidoa and Jowhar because the capital is too dangerous is strongly opposed by the Parliament speaker and the warlords running Mogadishu. The dispute is seen as threatening any hope of peace for Somalia, which has been in a state of violent anarchy for 14 years. Posted by: Fred 2005-07-02 |
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