Plotting With Governor Mohammed Dheere.

[radical]

Somalia: Governor Talking With Insurgents - Report





Garowe Online (Garowe)

26 February 2008
Posted to the web 26 February 2008

The governor of Somalia's Middle Shabelle region, Mohamed Omar Delle, has left the provincial capital Jowhar to a secret location where he is holding talks with anti-government groups, officials said Tuesday.

Governor Delle is reported to have arrived in El Baraf village, part of Middle Shabelle region, just north of the national capital Mogadishu.

Ahmed Omar Habeb, a senior Middle Shabelle official who is the brother of Mogadishu Mayor Mohamed "Dheere" Omar Habeb, confirmed to local media that Gov. Delle is in El Baraf to talk with insurgents, but declined further comment.

Govt troops

He admitted he was in El Baraf yesterday (Monday), but stated that Gov. Delle himself will address the media regarding these talks "when he returns to Jowhar."

A Middle Shabelle regional government source told Garowe Online that the basis of Gov. Delle's talks with the insurgents is to "regain" two vehicles that were stolen.

Tax money collected from across Middle Shabelle region abroad the vehicles was also taken, and the "Governor is trying to get it back," the source added.

It is not clear how much success Gov. Delle can achieve in the talks, but he has become the first Somali government official to hold face-to-face dialogue with anti-government groups since the bloody insurgency erupted in January 2007.

Middle Shabelle region has been spared much of the insurgent bloodshed, which has claimed thousands of lives in Mogadishu and other parts of the country.

Insurgent groups, led by remnants of an Islamist movement that once ruled Mogadishu, have sworn to continue their guerrilla war until Ethiopian troops backing the interim government withdraw from Somali soil and Islamic rule is restored.