By C. Bryson Hull
JOWHAR, Somalia, Oct 25 (Reuters) - The top United Nations official for Somalia met the anarchic country's president on Tuesday to try to end months of wrangling inside his divided government that has increased the threat of renewed fighting.
Francois Lonseny Fall, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative, flew to Jowhar to meet President Abdullahi Yusuf, the second time the diplomat has visited the town 90 km (55 miles) north of Mogadishu in three months.
Fall, who spoke only briefly to reporters, said his trip to see Yusuf was for consultation on a range of issues -- but primarily on how to bridge a gap in the government that has one faction in Jowhar and others in Mogadishu.
Yusuf declined to speak to reporters.
Fall said his main task was to learn "how to solve some differences among some members of the (government)".
The tension between the Yusuf-led faction, based in Jowhar, and dissident warlords in his cabinet who are allied with a group based in Mogadishu, has led to an increased flow of weapons into the Horn of Africa country of 10 million people.
Despite an arms embargo, weapons shipments into the country in the past eight months have grown nearly 400 percent over the previous year, according to a report delivered to the U.N. Security Council earlier this month.
Both factions are gearing up for a military showdown, and 10 ministers in the government and Yusuf were involved in the latest transactions, the report said. Ethiopia, Yemen and Eritrea were the main suppliers, it said.
Fall and Yusuf met for about an hour in the presidential compound in Jowhar, where the president and his allies have made their temporary base, saying the traditional capital of Mogadishu is too unsafe to be the seat of government.
"We believe they are here because Mogadishu is not safe," Fall told reporters.
Fall said that little progress could be made until Mogadishu was secured, something he said was complicated by the fact that no peacekeepers had been sent into the country.
The U.N. Security Council would have to issue to a waiver under the arms embargo to permit peacekeepers and their heavy weapons into the country, which has not happened.
Security sources in Jowhar said that about 150 trainers from the Ethiopian military were working in and around Jowhar, teaching militiamen recruited by Yusuf in the past few months.
Ethiopia has consistently denied providing military support to Yusuf, a long-time ally of Addis Ababa.
Dissident warlords from the Mogadishu group have said the recruitment sends a message that military options will replace dialogue, and have responded in kind by boosting their own militias' strength.