Preparations for relocation to Mogadishu on track, say officials

"The plan to relocate the government to Somalia is still on track,"
Abdurrahman Ali "Malaysia", the special adviser to the prime minister, Ali
Mohammed Gedi, told IRIN on Monday.

The first group of cabinet ministers that is expected to leave for the
Somali capital, Mogadishu, will be led by the deputy prime minister,
Hussein Aydid. The "prime minister will definitely be in Mogadishu within
the next five days", Ali said.

"The PM [prime minister] was horrified by the killing of [Kate] Peyton and
has condemned the killing," Ali added.

Ali quoted Gedi as saying: "If those responsible were expecting to scare
us, then they are mistaken. We will not be deterred. We will return to
Mogadishu."

If all goes according to plan, "most of the cabinet and government should
be in Mogadishu by 10 March", he added.

Peyton, 39, was shot on Wednesday in front of her hotel as she got into a
car. She was rushed to a local hospital and died there later, a local
journalist who was at the scene at the time, told IRIN last Thursday.

"I don't want to speculate about who killed Kate Peyton, but there are
certainly groups who have an interest in painting Mogadishu as a dangerous
and unstable city," Matt Bryden, the director of the International Crisis
Group's Horn of Africa Project, told IRIN at the time.

No one has so far claimed responsibility for Peyton's death and the motive
is yet unknown. The latest killing was preceded by the killings of four
senior Somali police and/or military officers since September 2004 by
unidentified gunmen.

All the Somali victims have, at one time or another, called for the
deployment of peacekeepers to Somalia and had served under the
transitional national government, according to local sources.

The new government, which includes several faction leaders, has been
unable to relocate, citing security considerations. However, it has come
under increasing pressure from the Kenyan government and western diplomats
to relocate.

The transitional federal parliament elected Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed as
president on 10 October. The election marked the culmination of a two-year
reconciliation conference sponsored by the Inter-Governmental Authority on
Development that brought representatives from various clans and factions
together.

Military experts from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development
(IGAD) were expected in Mogadishu on Monday to assess the situation ahead
of the proposed deployment of a peace support mission to the war-torn
country.

IGAD, whose members are Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan
and Uganda, sponsored two years of peace talks between various Somali
clans and factions that culminated in the formation of the transitional
government.

On the sidelines of the recently concluded African Union summit in the
Nigerian capital of Abuja, the IGAD heads of state, who met under the
chairmanship of the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, committed to send
a peace support mission to Somalia to assist the peaceful establishment of
the transitional government in Mogadishu.