NAIROBI , 26 September (IRIN) - A group of powerful faction leaders, who are members of Somalia's divided Transitional Federal Institutions [TFIs], held a meeting in the town of Bal'ad, 60 km south of Jowhar, on Sunday, drawing accusations from their rivals that they were engaging in provocative activities.
Sources at the meeting said the gathering by the Mogadishu-based group was intended to demonstrate to the TFI wing led by President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime minister Ali Muhmmad Gedi, who are based in Jowhar, that they are a force to reckon with.
"They were simply showing Yusuf and Gedi that they could meet at their door step," said one source.
A spokesman for group led by Yusuf and Gedi denounced the meeting as provocative, saying it came at a time when efforts were being made to end the rift within the TFIs.
"Such meetings and provocative statements that come out of them do not help the ongoing reconciliation efforts,", said Abdirahman Dinari, the spokesman. "It is unfortunate and sad that their response to the president's and prime minister's offer of dialogue is this meeting and irresponsible statements," he added.
Among those who attended the Bal'ad meeting were former faction leaders and current cabinet ministers, including Commerce Minister Muse Sudi Yalahow, Muhammad Qanyare Afrah, the national security minister, and Housing and Public Works Minister Usman Hasan Ali Atto.
Also present were Religious Affairs Minister Omar Muhammad "Finish" and Col Barre Aden Hirale, the minister of Reconstruction and Resettlement, Muhammad Ibrahim Habsade, who controls the important town of Baidoa, and Yusuf Indha'ade, whose faction controls the Lower Shabelle region, according to Hassan Ade, a Mogadishu-based journalist.
Following their relocation in June from Nairobi, Somalia's transitional institutions have been divided over where the seat of government should be. They have also been wrangling over whether some neighbouring countries should send troops to Somalia as part of a proposed peacekeeping force.
The president, the prime minister and their supporters in the TFIs have maintained that security must be restored in Mogadishu before the interim government moved to the city.
That stand was opposed by about 100 members of the 275-strong Transitional Federal Parliament, led by Speaker Sharif Hassan Shaykh Aden, who set up shop in Mogadishu and have claimed that they were making efforts restore peace in the volatile city.
Organisers dubbed Sunday's gathering a "a meeting for peace" and announced that their next meeting would take place in the southern port city of Kismayo, 500 km south of Mogadishu, Ade said.
A political source in Somalia told IRIN that those who attended Sunday's "mulled over" a range of options, including combining their forces in anticipation of a possible attack on their positions by the president's group and the formation of a new opposition alliance.
"This looks like the beginning of the formation of a new political and military alliance and will probably be formally announced in the Kismayo meeting if differences with the Yusuf camp are not resolved", he added.
Dinari, however, said that that "the government was still committed to resolving all outstanding differences through dialogue and peaceful means".
Somalia has had no functioning central authority for the past 14 years, following the collapse in 1991 of the government of President Muhammad Siyad Barre. Civil war erupted in the country soon after Barre was toppled, as various rival factions fought for power.
The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, which is made up of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and Somalia, sponsored the reconciliation talks that culminated in the formation of the transitional government in October 2004.