Warlords join forces with Somalia's army in quest for peace

SOMALI warlords agreed yesterday to merge their forces with government troops to form a new national army to try to tame the anarchic African nation.

But fighting outside the presidential palace where they were meeting showed how hard that task will be. The warlords' gunmen trying to force their way inside fought Somali troops and the shoot-out - the kind of clash commonplace in the capital, Mogadishu, for the past 15 years - killed a handful of people.

It underscored the challenge that President Abdullahi Yusuf's fledgling government faces to bring peace and security to the country after defeating Islamists who had held the capital and the south for six months.

"The warlords have promised to hand over their weapons and militias to the government," a presidential spokesman said, adding that a committee had been formed to work out details of what many see as a key step in calming Somalia.

The presidential palace, where Mr Yusuf arrived on Monday in his first visit to the city since 1994, despite being elected two years ago, is protected by Ethiopian and Somali government troops, who defeated the Islamists in a lightning offensive late last month.

The Islamists, who wanted to impose sharia law, had driven out the warlords from much of southern Somalia after taking control of Mogadishu in June following four months of fighting.

Now the Islamists are on the run, and the aid agency Oxfam says air raids aimed at them and their suspected al-Qaeda allies hiding in southern Somalia had mistakenly killed 70 nomadic herdsmen.

"Bombs have hit vital water sources as well as large groups of nomads and their animals who had gathered round large fires at night to ward off mosquitoes," Oxfam said. "Under international law, there is a duty to distinguish between military and civilian targets."

Washington sent a warplane into Somalia on Monday to try to kill al-Qaeda suspects and Ethiopian aircraft have pounded the area for days in an attempt to finish the war. Both Ethiopia and the US deny hitting civilians.

The United Nations said yesterday that food had begun reaching 6,000 fleeing Somalis who had been blocked from entering Kenya after Nairobi sealed the border to stop any Islamists escaping.

The World Food Programme said the hunt for Islamists had left another 190,000 people cut off from humanitarian relief.

Washington's strike on Monday was its first overt military involvement in Somalia since a disastrous peacekeeping mission in 1994. The US said it killed up to ten al-Qaeda allies, but missed its main target of three top suspects. Washington denies carrying out any further strikes.

Its ally Ethiopia, the region's major power, wants to withdraw its soldiers in the coming weeks. Diplomats fear that would leave the government - a 14th attempt at central rule since 1991 - vulnerable to remnant Islamists who have vowed guerrilla war and to warlords seeking to re-create their fiefdoms.