Already at odds with its numerous rivals, Somalia’s interim government also has to face internal strife which most of the time looks like clan rivalry. A few weeks ago these splits led to a confrontation between president Abdi Quassam Salad Hassan and his minister of defense Abdullahi Musse "King Kong" concerning aid given to the militia who were controlling Kisimayo in the south of the country (ION 932). More recently a big problem has raised its head, this time between the prime minister Al Khalif Galayr and the minister of foreign affairs Ismael Muhamad Hurreh " Buba" who looks after his own business and bends his knee only to president Salad Hassan, to the prime minister’s great displeasure. During a meeting of the Somalian council of ministers at Mogadiscio January 11 the two men attacked each other verbally about aid of $15 million received from Saudi Arabia that Buba was able to acquire during a recent trip there. When the Somalian ministers asked how the money was going to be shared out, the prime minister answered that he didn’t know because he had not been informed of Buba’s trip to Saudi. He also considered as prime minister he was head of the government and that Buba should at least have reported the results back to him instead of running directly to the president to speak to him and make statements in the local press The prime minister’s statements angered Buba and he lost his temper. It took all the skill of the vice premier minister Osman Jama Ali Kalun’s (Issaq) to avoid a more serious clash.

I.O.N. - This incident illustrates the attempts made by president Salad Hassan to extend his role which in the beginning was intended to symbolic. In fact Buba ( who is Isaq/Eidagale) has got on well with the Saudian authorities for years,and due to this the has entered the good books of president Salad Hassan (Habr Gedir, Hawiye ) by organizing this last trip to Saudi Arabia and to Cairo where the summit meeting of the Arab league took place a few months ago. Salad Hassan immediately made an ally of him and after taking some time to think about making him prime minister finally appointed him foreign minister. From that time Buba has played the Irrir card (the common ancestor of the Issaq and the Hawiye) against Darods (like the prime minister). In this context the attempts of Ali Khalif Galayr to gather under his wing the Darods who support the Somalian interim government have been opposed by the Issaq ministers and the protocol visit which he made to the Vatican was not appreciated by the pro Saudi Buba.