Kismayo gets new regional administration

The formation of a regional administration has been announced in the port city of Kismayo, 500 km south of Mogadishu. The new administration, which was announced on Monday, consists of an 11-member council, each member from one of the region’s 11 “major sub-clans”, a source in Kismayo told IRIN. The talks which led to the establishment of the Kismayo administration were organised by the Juba Valley Alliance (JVA), which forcibly expelled the forces of General Muhammad Sa’id Hirsi Morgan from Kismayo in 1999. The JVA is a grouping of Marehan, Ogadeni and Habar Gedir clans. The talks brought together 84 delegates from all the clans of the area, and had been in progress for “the last month and half”, Abdinadif Hashi, a Kismayo businessman, said. “We had decided that we could not go on the way we were going,” Hashi, who was involved in the talks, told IRIN. Muhammad Dahir Ilmi, a Marehan, was appointed the new Kismayo district commissioner, and Colonel Ali Ilmi Moge, an Ogadeni, the new police chief, Hashi said. Kismayo has been described as one of the most unstable places in Somalia; it changed hands many times during the civil war, Somali political sources pointed out. “The new administration is part and parcel of the TNG,” Hashi said. He said the TNG had known about the talks and welcomed the outcome. A TNG delegation was present in Kismayo when the new administration was announced on Monday, Hashi said. Meanwhile, a spokesman for General Morgan warned ‘Yool’, a local paper based in Bosaso, the commercial capital of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, that the formation of the new administration would lead to further bloodshed in Kismayo, Bile Mahmud Qabowsade, the editor of ‘Yool’, told IRIN. Bile quoted Morgan’s spokesman, Abbas Farah Mahmud Kilwa, as saying that the TNG would bear the responsibility for any consequences of the new administration. General Morgan’s Majerten clan is the main clan in Puntland, and - like the Marehan and Ogadeni - comes from the Darod grouping.