Somalia's reconciliation committee met Tuesday in Nairobi, Kenya to discuss an upcoming conference and propose that Saudi Arabia be made a member of an international advisory committee, U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said. The Somali National Governance and Reconciliation Committee includes clan leaders, the Somali transitional government, civil society members, and the United Nations. The International Advisory Committee, which offers assistance for the planned reconciliation conference to be announced soon, currently includes the United Nations and 15 countries. Stressing the independent nature of its mandate, the Reconciliation Committee said that it continues efforts to bring on board all clans, each of which will be allocated quotas for all representative members of Somalia society, including women and Somalis abroad, Okabe told reporters. The Nairobi meeting came as a Somali clan, the Hawiye, released a report Tuesday saying that more than 1,000 civilians were killed and over 4,000 were wounded during four days of the worst fighting in 15 years in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. The fighting has been linked to remnants of the Islamic Courts Militia, who were initially run out of the capital at the beginning of the year when Ethiopian troops entered the country to protect the weak transitional government. U.N. special representative for Somalia Francois Lonseny Fall will brief the U.N. Security Council Thursday on recent developments in Somalia.
