MOGADISHU, Somalia May 5 (Garowe Online) - Leaders in Somalia’s transitional government are planning to rename some of Mogadishu’s former warlords to key Cabinet posts, confidential sources said.

Sources close to the office of Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi told Garowe Online that at least three ex-warlords who carved Mogadishu into warring fiefdoms since the 1990s will be renamed as Cabinet ministers.

All three ex-warlords – Mohamed Qanyare, Muse Sudi Yalahow and Omar Filish – are members of the transitional federal Parliament that operates from the inland city of Baidoa.

MP Qanyare is expected to be renamed to his former post of national security minister, while the inside sources could not confirm what post his colleagues Yalahow and Filish will be appointed to.

The sources said Prime Minister Gedi will announce the Cabinet reshuffle "in the coming days."

The move to rename the ex-warlords, who were fired from Gedi’s Cabinet last year, is part of the government’s strategy to include the major players in the country’s political landscape, diplomatic sources said.

Last week, two other ex-warlords, Mohamed Dheere and Abdi Qeybdiid, were named to the posts of Mogadishu mayor and national police commander, respectively.

All these warlords are members of a U.S.-funded coalition known as the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Anti-Terror, a group that fought against the Union of Islamic Courts and ultimately led to the Islamists’ rise to power in mid-2006.

The Ethiopia-backed transitional government is maintaining a fragile peace in Mogadishu after month-long battles that killed more than 1,500 people and displaced nearly 400,000 civilians.

Source: Garowe Online