NAIROBI, Kenya, July 28 — One of the top ministers of the transitional government of Somalia was assassinated outside a mosque today, the latest sign of worsening turbulence in an already unstable country.
Abdallah Deerow Isaq, the minister overseeing the efforts to rewrite Somali’s constitution, was ambushed by a lone gunman as he was leaving Friday prayers at a mosque in central Baidoa, the provincial town serving as the country’s temporary capital, witnesses said.
His death comes at a difficult time for the fledgling government, which is struggling with a powerful Islamic foe in Mogadishu, the country’s principal city, and with internal dissension in Baidoa.
More than a dozen members of the transitional parliament have quit in the past few days, with some of them defecting to Mogadishu to join the Muslim clerics who rule that city.
The parliament has scheduled a vote of confidence for Saturday to depose the Prime Minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi.
Many politicians have said they were fed up with Mr. Gedi, especially after word began to spread last week that large numbers of Ethiopian troops had been called in to the country to protect the Baidoa government. Ethiopia and Somali are regional rivals, and many Somalis said it was treacherous to ask for Ethiopian help.
“If those troops don’t leave soon, our government will fall, one hundred percent,” said Ahmed Mohammed Suleiman, a member of the transitional parliament.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Courts Union, the federation that controls Mogadishu and large swaths of the surrounding countryside, is apparently drawing in armament from neighboring countries. Several mysterious cargo planes that have landed in Mogadishu in recent days are thought to have been carrying heavy weapons.
There is still some hope for peace, though, with talks between the Baidoa transitional government and the Islamists set for next week. But many Somalis fear that another big civil war is coming, and that the Baidoa government and the Islamists will never agree on a formula for sharing power.
Somalia has not had an effective central government since early 1991, when warlords from various clans in the country overthrew its dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre, and then turned on one another. An American military incursion in 1993, meant to halt the civil war and deliver humanitarian aid, ended in failure.
The new interim government, formed with United Nations support, has not been able even to enter the former capital, Mogadishu, which was seized by the Islamist federation in June after months of bitter fighting against clan warlords.
