MOGADISHU, Somalia Apr 18 (Garowe Online) - One of Mogadishu’s most notorious warlords was promoted to become the Somali chief of police on Wednesday in a government reshuffle.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi  named Abdi Awale Qeybdiid to the post after appointing his predecessor, Gen. Ali Madobe, as Somalia’s ambassador to Tanzania.

Qeybdiid, a former police colonel, was a lieutenant for Mohamed Farah Aideed, the Somali general whose fighters clashed with American soldiers in the “Black Hawk Down” battle of Mogadishu in 1993.

In 2006, he was a leading member of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Anti-Terror, a warlord coalition reportedly financed by the CIA to kill or capture al-Qaeda elements in Mogadishu, but whose hidden purpose was to destroy the Union of Islamic Courts.

Observers say the interim government is hoping to boost its public image by appointing Qeybdiid, a member of Mogadishu’s dominant Hawiye clan, to the post of national police chief.

The government remains unpopular in parts of Mogadishu, where its troops and Ethiopian allies have been accused of war crimes following recent street battles with insurgent and clan fighters.

Garowe Online News