Hargeysa, Somaliland, February 4, 2006 (SL Times) – Col. Abdillahi Yusuf, the president of Somalia’s Transitional Federal government on Thursday arrived in his home town of Galkayo following his recent fall out with his premier, Ali Mohamed Geedi, amid an increasing Ethiopian displeasure with his bellicosity in relation with other Somali groups.

Abdillahi Yusuf ruled out returning to Jowhar, the seat of his government and located about 650km to the south of Galkayo, apparently for security reasons.

The rift between premier Geedi and president Abdillahi Yusuf started after Monday’s announcement in Nairobi that the TFG’s parliament will meet this month in Baidowa, 250km southwest of Mogadishu.

The appointment of Baidowa instead of Jowhar as the venue of the parliament’s first meeting inside Somalia since the TFG was formed in Nairobi about two years ago, has angered Geedi and his supporters including warlord Mohamed Dheere. Both Geed and Mohamed Dheere are from Jowhar and have already indicated that they were unhappy about the decision of the parliament’s speaker, Sharif Hassan, to convene the assembly’s meeting in Baidowa. Abdillahi Yusuf’s public endorsement of the decision while still in Nairobi soon drew criticism from the Geedi camp.

By Tuesday, Abdillahi Yusuf’s offices in Jowhar were stormed by the town’s powerful warlord, Mohamed Dheere. Scores of armed militia men guarding the premises were reportedly disarmed by the Jowhar warlord who also rules much of the fertile middle Shabelle region.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Abdillahi Yusuf declined to return to Jowhar and instead flew to Addis Ababa on Tuesday reportedly to ask his Ethiopian friends to help him mend fences with Geedi.

According to some press reports, Mr. Yusuf had also requested the Ethiopians to use their influence with Geedi and Mohamed Dheere to allow a safe passage for his troops from Jowhar where they remain stuck to Baidowa. But the Ethiopians who have already been frustrated with Abdillahi Yusuf’s continued political feuds and inability to build consensus, seemed unenthusiastic in salvaging him.

But Geedi did arrive in Addis Ababa the following Wednesday by which time Abdillahi Yusuf left for Djibouti where he was immediately received by president Ismail Omer Gelleh. The TFG split into two factions immediately after its formation in Kenya in October 2004.

In last august, Mr. Yusuf and Geedi set up operations in Jowhar while parliament speaker Sharif Hassan went to Mogadishu along with about 100 legislators and a number of cabinet ministers.

The Sharif’s faction demanded that the whole government move to Mogadishu while Yusuf and Geedi considered the city unsafe.

However Abdillahi Yusuf, Geedi’s ally, signed a deal in Aden with the speaker with both promising to end their differences and hold the first session of parliament in Baidowa. The agreement was welcomed by Arab countries such as Yemen, Egypt, Libya and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Pledges by a number of GCC countries to underwrite the TFG’s financial needs if the two factions were to patch up their differences and similar promises of substantial aid by the Italians were said to have prompted Mr. Yusuf and the Sharif into striking the deal.

The renewed Arab interest in Somalia’s crisis stimulated Djibouti to resume its self-styled role of the Arab League’s trouble shooter for Somali affairs.

In a meeting between Yusuf and Gelleh in the sidelines of last month’s AU Khartoum conference, the two men struck a rapprochement. Close aids who accompanied Abdillahi Yusuf during the meeting had told the Somalis living in Khartoum that Gelleh accepted to allow the TFG’s president to operate from Djibouti until Baidowa was secure enough again.

The new division within the TFG has led to the realignment of political groups within Somalia as well as their foreign supporters.

While the Arabs back the new Abdillahi Yusuf/Sharif Hassan axis, Ethiopia and a number of IGAD countries are likely to support the Geedi camp.

The Italians who always considered the issue of who should rule Somalia as crucially important, have been caught in a dilemma as a result of the new shifts in alliances. But Abdirizak Jurrile, Italy’s point man, the highly corrupt minister of Planning and International Cooperation, has so far maintained his collaboration with Geedi at the expense of Abdillahi Yusuf. However only common interest that the Italian and Arab governments still share as far as this region is concerned, is their hostility to Somaliland’s independence.