Somali President Arrives in Capital

A Transitional Federal Government soldier carrying a rocket-propelled grenade patrols a street in Mogadishu, Sunday. (Mohamed Sheikh Nor - AP)

Leaders of the Islamic movement have vowed from their hideouts to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war, and al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden's deputy has called on militants to carry out suicide attacks on the Ethiopian troops.

In Mogadishu, the interim president was expected to meet with clan elders and stay at the former presidential palace. Security across the capital was tight, though government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari claimed: "There are no security concerns at all."

Some Islamic fighters are believed to still be hiding in Mogadishu and gunmen attacked Ethiopian troops Sunday in the second straight day of violence in the city.

Many people in predominantly Muslim Somalia resent the presence of troops from neighboring Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population and has fought two brutal wars with Somalia, most recently in 1977.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, sinking the Horn of Africa nation of 7 million people into chaos.

European Union foreign policy Javier Solana said he told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday that a U.N. peacekeeping force may be needed to guarantee security and stability in Somalia. He said Ugandan forces may be the first deployed to replace Ethiopian troops.

Although Yusuf, 72, has led the interim government put together by various Somali factions during negotiations in Kenya two years ago, the president had not been in Mogadishu in more than four decades, spokesman Abdirahman Dinari told the AP.

A former colonel in the Somali army during the 1960s, Yusuf was jailed by Barre when he refused to cooperate in a coup d'etat in 1969. With Ethiopian support, he launched a rebellion against Barre during the 1980s.

When he took office in 2004, members of the government quickly split over its priorities and where it should be located. His closeness to Ethiopia also caused tension within the government.

Yusuf was believed have been the target of a car bomb assassination attempt in September in the western city of Baidoa, which the government chose as its seat because Mogadishu was deemed unsafe. His government blamed the Islamic militia, which denied having anything to do with it.

Jendayi Frazer, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa, said Sunday that the United States would use its diplomatic and financial resources to support the government. The U.S. has pledged $40 million in political, humanitarian and peacekeeping assistance.

The African Union has begun planning for a peacekeeping force, and Uganda has promised at least 1,000 soldiers. Frazer has said she hopes the first troops will begin arriving in Mogadishu before the end of the month.

The mission will be modeled on a peacekeeping force that recently concluded duty in Burundi. African troops there provided security for political leaders and key facilities while a new government took over the country.

Frazer said Somalia is important to the United States because of its strategic location in the Horn of Africa, where the Red Sea opens into the Indian Ocean. The U.S. also wants to make sure international terrorists do not take advantage of Somalia's chaos to establish a haven.

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Associated Press writers Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Mohamed Sheik Nor and Salad Duhul in Mogadishu and Chris Tomlinson in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report.