RRA chairman offers to reinstate his deputies

The chairman of the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA), Col Hasan Muhammad Nur Shatigadud, has called on his two deputies to return to Baidoa and promised they would not be harmed, a member of the RRA told IRIN on Thursday.

Baidoa, which is the headquarters of the RRA, has been the scene of fierce factional fighting between two RRA factions over the past month. The fighting first broke out on 1 July between forces loyal to Shatigadud and those of his two deputies, Shaykh Adan Madobe and Muhammad Ibrahim Habsade, in an apparent power struggle. On 31 July, Shatigadud's forces drove those of his deputies out of town, and seized control.

However, a Baidoa resident told IRIN that Madobe and Habsade were reassembling their forces in the village of Qurunjiis, some seven kilometres, south of Baidoa. In response, Shatigadud has sent emissaries to Madobe and Habsade in an effort to persuade his erstwhile allies to return to the RRA and be reinstated. He told the emissaries, comprising elders, that there would be no reprisals against the deputies.

The source said that while Shatigadud's offer might be genuine, it was unlikely that Madobe and Habsade would "heed the elders' fresh attempt at mediation". "Their aim seems to be to first gain a foothold in Baidoa before agreeing to mediation, he said. "If the elders, who were in the area of Qurunjiis today [Thursday], do not succeed, then I am afraid we are in for another round of hostilities."

Meanwhile, Shatigadud has appealed to civilians who had fled fighting in Baidoa to come home, saying the town was peaceful. "The curfew imposed on the town for a few days is over," Agence France Presse quoted Shatigadud as saying.