Security officials in Somalia know who assassinated a close ally of President Abdulkassim Salat Hassan and are looking for the killers, Salat's security advisor told AFP on Thursday.
"They have been identified and are being sought," General Ali Ismael Mohammed said of the young men on Wednesday sprayed Youssouf Talan with bullets in a part of south Mogadishu controlled by arch-warlord and Salat opponent Hussein Mohammed Aidid.
General Mohammed (the security chief, not the warlord) did not name the suspected assassins who struck as Talan was drinking a cup of coffee near the Hotel Sahafi close to Kilometer-4 junction.
Talan was buried Wednesday evening. Salat attended the ceremony, as did Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galaydh and several members of parliament.
These posts and a transitional assembly were created during a reconciliation process organized by neighboring Djibouti amid fierce opposition from warlords such as Aidid, who warned that the process would foster more bloodshed in a country ravaged by clan warfare since the 1991 fall of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre.
Rumors had been circulating in Mogadishu for several days that an attack would be made on someone involved in the Djibouti process.
Talan had been living in Canada for six years before going in May to Djibouti, where he played an active role in the reconciliation conference, persuading fellow members of his Gadabursi sub-clan not to walk out, and backing Salat's nomination as president.
Talan traveled with Salat when the president returned to Mogadishu at the weekend.
He was not chosen to sit in the transitional assembly but was widely expected to gain an important position in the government due to be formed shortly, perhaps in the defense ministry.
Talan, a former brigadier-general in the army of ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, was a member of the Dir clan mainly found in the Awdal region of the breakaway northwestern region known as Somaliland, whose political leaders also reject the reconciliation process.
Talan, however, was in favor of reintegrating Somaliland into Somalia proper.
General Mohammed said the new regime will eventually boast a government security force of between 4,000 and 6,000 men drawn from various militia groups.
A tribunal will be formed when the killers are apprehended, he added.
A source close to Salat's entourage suggested that Talan's murder was part of a "destabilization plan" targeting people from northern Somalia who support the reconciliation process -- MOGADISHU (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
