Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein dissolved cabinet on Sunday, barely two weeks after five ministers quit his newly formed government over its composition, according to reports reaching here from the southern Somali town of Baidoa.

 

The reports said Hussein wanted to trim members the cabinet where he would appoint half of the ministers from outside the transitional parliament set up three years ago.

 

"After meeting my ministers I decided to form a new government," Hussein reportedly told a news conference in Baidoa, where the parliament is based.

 

Awad Ashara, a Somali lawmaker, confirmed the new development, saying Hussein promised to form a new cabinet with much fewer members than the current 30.

 

"The international community expressed their displeasure with the number of ministers chosen from outside the parliament," Hussein said.

 

Hussein was appointed in November to replace former prime minister Ali Mohammed Gedi, who had been seen as failing to pacify Somalia's main clans and sub-clans after many of them insisted on being represented in the government.

 

Gedi had refused to negotiate with armed Islamists and other opposition groups.

 

The newly appointed premier is from the Hawiye clan, the largest in the capital Mogadishu, many members of which distrust President Abdullahi Yusuf, from the rival Darod group.

 

The appointment of Hussein, who used to be a Somali Red Crescent officer and was seen as a neutral political figure, came three weeks after his predecessor Gedi quit under pressure over lack of progress in building the transitional government.

 

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, who made the nomination, urged Hussein to form a cabinet quickly.

 

Gedi is blamed for failing to quell the Islamist insurgency which briefly controlled much of central and southern Somalia until early this year. He is also blamed for inviting Ethiopian troops onto Somali soil.

 

Islamist insurgents are battling the Ethiopian-backed government forces in the capital and the UN says some 200,000 people have fled their homes in the past two weeks.

 

Fighting between Islamist-led insurgents and elements of the Ethiopian army for control of Mogadishu has intensified during the recent past, forcing a million citizens to flee the city.

 

Somalia has not had a functioning national government since former ruler Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 17, 2007)