A much-delayed Somali reconciliation conference was due to start yesterday in Mogadishu amid fears of insurgent attacks and in the absence of the embattled government's main foes.
Some 1,300 delegates were expected at the meeting, billed as the latest bid to restore stability in a country mired in civil conflict which has defeated more than a dozen peace initiatives since 1991.
The reconciliation conference was called by the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) after it defeated an Islamist movement with the help of Ethiopia in January, but their main adversaries have rejected the meeting.
The virtually homeless government, which has failed to bring the restive country under control in three years of existence, is staging the conference at a former police warehouse in northern Mogadishu.
"Adequate security is in place and the delegates will be safe," said General Abdi Hassan Awale Qeybdid, a former warlord and the country's police chief.
Ethiopia-backed government troops sealed off the venue.
But observers have said insurgent attacks could still thwart the latest peace initiative.
Sporadic gunfire was heard in Mogadishu overnight and a senior official was killed in a roadside bomb attack outside the capital early yesterday.
Hassan Ahmed Hassan, the deputy district commissioner of Afgoye, about 30km west of the capital Mogadishu, died in the blast. A boy was killed and three others were injured, police said.
The conference was designed to discuss a power-sharing arrangement known as "4.5," bringing four major clans and a smaller one together.
The meeting's 11-point agenda includes discussions on clan reconciliation, disarmament, the sharing of natural resources and "the nature and impact of radical Islam."
Yet the conference has been rejected outright by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which was toppled after weeks of heavy fighting with the joint TFG and Ethiopian forces, who demanded that such a conference be held outside of Somalia in a neutral country.
The Hawiye clan, dominant in the capital and many of whose members also belong to the ICU, is divided over the conference.
"The conference would make sense if it was bringing rival politicians and armed groups to the same table," said Ahmed Diriye, a spokesman for the Hawiye.
"But if the idea is to talk about a non-existent tribal conflict, it's a waste of money and energy," he said.
Another Hawiye faction said it would attend the conference.
Roland Marchal, an expert from France's Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales called the talks a non-starter.
"It's billed as a clan reconciliation, but the problem isn't so much between clans. It's between the government and the insurgents," he said.
"These talks are going down the wrong path ... The time wasted trying to make this conference work will allow the violence to grow and evolve," he said.
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