Tensions Rise in Northern Somalia

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN – 15 hours ago
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Tensions are rising in northern Somalia following clashes between forces of rival regional administrations, officials said Friday, and diplomats called on all sides to show restraint.

Somalia's weak federal government based in Mogadishu, in the south, has been hard-pressed to assert control in the south and was unlikely to have any influence in the confrontation between the autonomous Puntland region and the breakaway republic of Somaliland.

Hassan Dahir Mohamud, Puntland's vice president, told The Associated Press that one soldier was killed and three others wounded. Somaliland officials had earlier in the week claimed on local radio stations that their troops killed three Puntland soldiers during a gunbattle at a village in a region called Sool.

Both Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia in 1991 but has not been internationally recognized, and Puntland, an autonomous region in northeastern Somalia, claim Sool. They have clashed over the region at least four times in the past.

"We urge the leadership of both Puntland and Somaliland to exercise maximum restraint and to give their full support to peaceful approaches for resolution," said a group of donors to Somalia, the Committee of the Coordination of International Support to Somalia.

"There is a growing buildup of arms and troops inside the region, with deliveries coming by land on a daily basis," said Haji Mohamed Jama, a resident of Las Anod, the capital of Sool.
Mohamud said his administration dispatched more troops to the contested region to stop forces from Somaliland crossing into Puntland.

Mohamud said that Puntland had also arrested seven men carrying explosives in vehicles with Somaliland registration plates in Buhodle, a town bordering Puntland and Ethiopia.

"We handed the men to Ethiopian security forces for further investigation," said Mohamud.
Somalia has had no effective central government since warlords ousted dictator Mohamed Said Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, turning the country of 7 million people into a patchwork of battling clan fiefdoms. Somaliland and Puntland have managed to avoid much of the clan-based fighting that has plagued central and southern Somalia.