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Monday, December 29, 2008
Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, Somalia's combative former warlord of a president who has been widely blamed for his country's deepening crisis, resigned Monday, casting Somalia into a deeper political abyss, but at the same time possibly creating an opportunity.
Yusuf blamed the international community for not doing enough to shore up Somalia's transitional government, which has steadily lost control of much of the country to Islamist insurgents.
"Most of the country was not in our hands and we had nothing to give our soldiers," Yusuf told legislators in Baidoa, Somalia's seat of Parliament. "The international community has also failed to help us."
His exit will most likely kick off an intense, clan-based scramble for his post, which in reality has become increasingly irrelevant as the government has veered toward collapse. Somalia's transitional government controls only a few city blocks, and it has been continuously beset by poisonous infighting.
Earlier this month, Yusuf, who has been president since 2004, tried to dismiss Somalia's prime minister, but the Parliament refused. Several of Somalia's neighbors, including Kenya, then threatened to impose sanctions on Yusuf and his family, accusing him of being an obstacle to peace.
Yusuf, a former warlord who claims to be around 74 years old, though he is widely believed to be several years older, has constantly rejected efforts to bring moderate Islamist opposition leaders into the government. Now that he is leaving, many Somalis hope there may be a way to rebuild and give the Islamists a meaningful role.
Under the transitional charter, the speaker of the Parliament will take over the presidency for one month until the Parliament elects a new one. Several moderate Islamists could be candidates.
Over the weekend, fighting broke out between moderate and radical factions in the first obvious sign of tensions within Somalia's Islamist community.
On Sunday, a powerful, newly militarized Islamist group declared a "holy war" against the more militant Islamist factions, and it seems to have the muscle to back up its threats. The group, the Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jama, killed more than 10 fighters from a rival Islamist faction that was known as one of Somalia's toughest in fighting over the weekend.
The group called on its followers to "prepare themselves for jihad against these heretic groups," referring to some of the more hard-line factions and "to restore stability and harmony in Somalia and achieve a genuine government of national unity."
Many analysts had been predicting exactly this would happen: that as Somalia's transitional government disintegrated, the Islamist insurgents of varying agendas would begin to slug it out themselves.
Yusuf did not say what he would do, now, but many Somalis expect that he will return to his clan stronghold in northern Somalia. His militia has already fled the capital, as more than 100 soldiers loyal to Yusuf flew out Sunday for northern Somalia. Several politicians aligned with Yusuf also left for northern Somalia, implying that Yusuf's powerful subclan, the Majerten, may be pulling out of the government.
Mohammed Ibrahim contributed reporting from Mogadishu, Somalia.
Source: Interanational Herald Tribune, Dec 29, 2008