Sun April 10, 2005 3:23 PM GMT+02:00
By Mohamed Ali Bile
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - More than 30 members of Somalia's parliament arrived in the capital on Sunday to stake their support for Mogadishu as the seat of power amid a deep split over where the fledgling government should be based.
Under pressure from foreign governments and donors, the interim Somali government plans to leave Kenya, where it was formed in December after two years of stop-start peace talks, and return to lawless Somalia.
MPs aligned to President Abdullahi Yusuf have said they want to temporarily relocate to the relatively calmer cities of Baidoa and Jowhar, until security is established in anarchic Mogadishu.
Others insist the government should return to Mogadishu, Somalia's single most dangerous place, which the transitional constitution stipulates must serve as the capital.
The members of parliament who landed on Sunday included former Mogadishu warlords Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, minister for national security and Muse Sudi Yalahow, minister for commerce.
However, Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi told local media the MPs were returning for personal reasons, saying the government had yet to decide where it would relocate to.
"These are MPs who have no right to intervene in the activity of the cabinet," Gedi said from the Libyan capital Tripoli where he was visiting.
President Yusuf has asked African and Arab states to supply 7,500 troops to help disarm militiamen roaming Mogadishu since warlords overran the country in 1991, toppling military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and ending central authority.
But a dispute about whether so-called frontline states bordering Somalia should contribute soldiers has caused further problems and delays to the planned African Union peacekeeping force.
Militant Islamists and influential warlords have vowed to attack troops from Kenya, Djibouti and longstanding rival Ethiopia, if they are deployed.
More than 18 people were killed and 32 others wounded when heavy clashes broke out on Saturday between the rival Garre and Merrehan clans in the Gedo region, close to the border with Kenya, residents and clansmen said.
It was not immediately clear why they were fighting in a clash that illustrates the volatile instability of the Horn of Africa country.
A spokesman for the Merrehan clan told local media on Sunday their militiamen, who were chased out of the area, would return with reinforcements.