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A top leader in Somalia's now-vanquished Islamist movement was in the hands of authorities in neighbouring Kenya as more deadly clashes erupted on the streets of Mogadishu.
Diplomatic sources said Monday that Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, head of the executive arm of the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia, was in custody under the protection of Kenyan security forces at an upscale hotel in Nairobi.
“Sheikh Sharif is in Kenya,” one diplomatic source told AFP on condition of anonymity. “He is in a secure place, according to the Kenyan authorities.”
A senior Kenyan police official said Ahmed and three other Somalis had been detained early Sunday at a small border crossing point while two diplomatic sources confirmed Ahmed was in Kenyan custody.
Ahmed is the most senior member of the Islamist movement, which took power in Mogadishu last June, to end his time on the run from the transitional Somali government and their Ethiopian allies who had pursued remnants to the Somali-Kenya border.
A diplomatic source said the sheikh, one of the vanquished regime's moderates, could be a useful element in pulling fractious Somali factions together as part of efforts at national reconciliation.
“He is one of the people we think can promote dialogue,” the source said.
Deputy Somali deputy premier Hussein Aidid said Ahmed would be welcome back home as long as he turns his back on his old associates.
“This is a government of reconciliation,” he said. “We believe that that is the only way to restore peace in Somalia.”
The United States, which denied being involved in his capture or detention, has said it believes Ahmed could be a worthy interlocutor.
US Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger, whose mandate includes Somalia, met with Ahmed in Nairobi last year after the Islamists seized Mogadishu from US-backed warlords to press moderation.
Washington, which backed Ethiopia's intervention in Somalia and then launched an airstrike at suspected Al-Qaeda operatives there, has welcomed the change of regime as a chance to turn the page on a 16-year cycle of violence.
While the transitional government was founded in 2004, it had only been able to operate out of a provincial backwater until intervention from the Ethiopian army led to the toppling of the Islamists on December 28.
The presence of troops from Ethiopia, a traditional enemy of Somalia, has angered many in Mogadishu.
Ethiopia troops again came under fire Monday while conducting searches in the capital, with residents saying at least four civilians were killed in the ensuing gunbattle. The searches were conducted after a weekend ambush on an Ethiopian convoy which also ended in deadly clashes.
Government sources said security was discussed in talks between interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin on the first visit to Mogadishu by a top official from Addis Ababa since the Islamists' demise.
A proposed 7,600-strong peacekeeping force for Somalia, authorised by the African Union on Friday, received a boost when Malawi said it would send soldiers. Only Uganda had previously made such a pledge.
The European Union said it was willing to help fund the force if Mogadishu's new rulers pursued reconciliation, its foreign ministers declaring “a window of opportunity exists for a sustainable solution to Somalia's difficulties.”
Meanwhile the International Martime Bureau voiced concerns that the ouster of the Islamists could herald a return to the seas of Somali pirates who helped shape the country's reputation for lawlessness.
“Within days of their influence being removed there had been an attempted attack on an American bulk carrier in Somali waters, the first for a number of months,” said an IMB report.
