Militia boss wins security job in Somalia

December 07 2004 at 11:50AM

Nairobi - Somalia's prime minister appointed a top Mogadishu militia leader as national security minister, completing the formation of a 34-strong cabinet in the latest move to rebuild the anarchic nation, officials said.

Mohammed Qanyare, whose 2 000-strong militia commands dozens of flatbed trucks mounted with heavy machineguns in the chaotic capital, was sworn in on Monday evening in a final batch of ministerial appointments by Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Geedi.

Qanyare, one of Somalia's most heavily armed politicians, is also a prominent businessman who runs an airstrip near the capital used by international aid agencies and importers of the stimulant leaf qat grown in Kenya and chewed by Somali men.

The cabinet, most of which was appointed on December 1, was holding its first full session in the Kenyan resort town of Naivasha to put together the government's programme, said Yusuf Mohammed Ismail, spokesman for President Abdullahi Yusuf.

The government's formation in the safety of neighbouring Kenya is the latest step in a two-year-old reconciliation process aimed at ending militia chaos that began when warlords ousted then military ruler Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in clan violence or have died through war-related famine and disease since then, and the country is a patchwork of rival clan factions.

Diplomats have described the announcement of the cabinet as a crucial moment because there are many more militia leaders in Somalia than the posts on offer. Any one of those excluded, if displeased enough, could spoil the plans, Somalis say.

Hussein Farah Aideed, son of a Somali warlord who eluded and embarrassed US forces a decade ago, was appointed Interior Minister and Second Deputy Prime Minister on Monday evening.

The cabinet has been selected according to a formula agreed at the peace talks that gives equal proportions of jobs to the four major clans and a smaller portion to a minor clan.

Yusuf has said the government should make a start at solving the country's problems within a year.

Yusuf plans to rebuild Somalia but his coffers are empty. Most government offices in the capital Mogadishu were destroyed by fighting or taken over by warring factions years ago.

Since his election, militant Islamist groups in Mogadishu have expressed opposition to his government and troops from his powerbase of Puntland, a northern enclave, clashed with the rival territory of Somaliland, a hotbed of anti-Yusuf sentiment.