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Friday, February 20, 2009
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Somalia's new prime minister named his cabinet on Friday, making the leader of a major Islamist militia the interior minister and a key ally of the president finance minister.
Somalia's new Islamist president, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, and Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke face the daunting task of bringing peace to the failed Horn of Africa state after 18 years of violence.
Key to success will be to persuade the many Islamist groups that fought Ethiopian troops to back the government, and isolate hardline al Shabaab fighters who have declared war on the new administration and are on Washington's list of terrorist groups.
According to a cabinet list from the prime minister's office, Sharmarke appointed Abdulkadir Ali Omar interior minister and Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden deputy prime minister and finance minister.
Omar was deputy chairman of the Islamic Courts Union that ousted warlords from Mogadishu and ran the capital before it in turn was driven from power by invading Ethiopian troops in late 2006.
Omar is based in the capital and is the leader of one of the strongest moderate Islamist militias in the country. (Reporting by Abdiaziz Hassan, editing by David Clarke and Tim Pearce).
Source: Reuters, Feb 20, 2009