Bartamaha(Nairobi):- Somalia’s prime minister has named two ministers from the moderate pro-government group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca in a power-sharing deal, a government spokesman said Saturday, but the group rejected his choices.

Ahmed Abdi Salan was named security minister and Yusuf Dhulow was named planning and international cooperation minister. Both are from Ahlu Sunna, but the group, made up of Sufi Muslims, said it did not support their nominations.

“The ministers the government appointed today do not represent Ahlu Sunna. This makes the power sharing agreement null and void,” sheikh Abdullahi sheikh Abu Yusuf, the spokesman of Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca, told Reuters.

The two sides signed a deal earlier this year aimed at strengthening their hand against the radical al Shabaab rebels and those from the Hizbul Islam group.

The deal calls for Ahlu Sunna members to join the government, although neither side has said how many seats in the cabinet the group would be given.

In Saturday’s reshuffle, Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke also named veteran Somali diplomat Yusuf Ibrahim Hassan as foreign minister and Abukar Abdi Osman as defence minister. It was not immediately clear if either of them have ties to Ahlu Sunna.

Somalia has had no effective central government for 20 years. Efforts by the west to prop up a government have been undermined by the insurgency. Government troops have been getting help from a 6,300 strong African Union force, known as AMISOM.

The force announced Saturday the deaths of two Ugandan members and the wounding of three others in fighting which took place Thursday.

“We were on patrol when the rebels started fighting,” Barigye Ba-Hoku, AMISOM’s spokesman, told Reuters Saturday.

“It is inhuman to put in the streets the dead body of an African who came for peacekeeping. Killing two or 20 will not disappoint the people of Uganda or harm our objective.”

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Source:- Reuters

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