By Guled Mohammed
NAIROBI (Reuters) - A Somali troop recruitment campaign is intended to create a national army and not attack any party involved in the government's internal differences, the prime minister of the divided administration said on Friday.
The government has recruited thousands of troops across the country in recent weeks in what looks to some Somalis like the prelude to an attack on bases held by cabinet ministers and members of parliament opposed to President Abdullahi Yusuf.
Some diplomats in the region have said they are concerned by the gathering of a group of about 1,700 fighters in the Bay and Bakol area, saying it would be positioned conveniently for any resumption of hostilities in the strategic town of Baidoa.
Earlier this year pro- and anti-Yusuf forces fought two battles for the town, which Yusuf, an Ethiopian-backed former army officer, plans to make a centre for his administration.
It remains in the hands of Yusuf's opponents, but military experts say a well-trained force -- which so far Yusuf has lacked -- would have little problem in taking it.
Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, a Yusuf ally, said on a visit to Nairobi that the recruitment was aimed at creating a national army and nothing to do with planned military action.
"We are bringing forces from all over Somalia in order to establish our security forces and that is the sustainable force which would be useful for Somalia," he told a news conference.
Portrayal of the call-up as a hostile move to "invade" areas held by government critics would be misinformation, he added.
Diplomats monitoring faltering attempts to restore effective administration to the broken country of up to 10 million say any hostile military movement by any party in Somalia would be a serious setback to the reconciliation process.
WARLORDS AND ANARCHY
Somalia has been without a central government since warlords ousted former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 plunging the Horn of Africa nation into anarchy.
Most of Somalia has since been carved into territories held by rival militias. Yusuf's administration, created at peace talks last year in Kenya, is fractured over key issues including where the fledgling government should be based.
Donor countries have said the administration is likely to receive significant foreign funding and assistance only when it takes clear steps to mend the rifts in its own ranks.
But Gedi said donors were not doing enough to help Yusuf's Transitional Federal Government (TFG).
"It's a concern of the TFG that the international community is very slow to support this process ... We request them to redouble their efforts," he said. "If it's a pre-condition for the international community to support Somalia after a full stabilization -- that is a dream."
Gedi said he had been due to have a breakfast meeting in Nairobi on Friday with parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, a political foe, but that the speaker had not shown up.
Sharif Hassan is an influential member of the anti-Yusuf wing of Somalia's transitional institutions which wants him to base his operations in the capital Mogadishu. Yusuf says the city, a hotbed of rival militias, is too dangerous.
"Unfortunately the speaker did not come to join this very important meeting of continuation of dialogue and negotiation. But we will never give up -- our doors are open for negotiation and dialogue," Gedi said.