SOMALIA:Somalia's president Abdullahi Yusuf entered Mogadishu yesterday, capping a remarkable turnaround in the capital, which Islamists ruled for six months until they were ousted before the new year.
As Mr Yusuf entered the city that has eluded his government since its formation two years ago, Ethiopian jets and soldiers attacked the remnants of the Somali Islamic Courts Council in the southern tip of Somalia.
Protected by his own soldiers and Ethiopian troops who helped the government drive out the Islamists, the 72-year-old veteran soldier made his first visit to Mogadishu since taking office in 2004, and ruled out talks with his foes. "The president has arrived. He is now in Villa Somalia," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said. He urged all Somalis to forget the past and prepare to build their country and support the interim government.
The Ethiopians are expected to pull out of Somalia in a matter of weeks, while an African peacekeeping force is cobbled together to fill the vacuum in security, which the government admits it cannot handle on its own.
The bullet-scarred Villa Somalia compound is the former palace of dictator Muhammad Siad Barre, whose 1991 ousting as Somalia's last national president in 1991 triggered more than 15 years of anarchy.
Mogadishu is the official capital of Somalia, but the government had been unable to install itself there first because of warlords in the government who opposed giving up their turf, and later because of the Islamists.
It had been forced to stay in outlying Somali towns, first in Jowhar north of the capital and since late April, in the southcentral town of Baidoa - the only area it had controlled until the two-week war. - (Reuters)