31 October 2004	Sunday	16 Ramazan 1425

HARGEISA, Oct 30: About 100 people were killed on Saturday in fighting between Puntland and the rival Somali territory of Somaliland, which accused Puntland's leader, now Somalia's new president, of waging war on it.

Abdullahi Yusuf, elected president on Oct. 10, has pledged to work peacefully with breakaway Somaliland as he tries to restore order to Somalia, which descended into anarchy in 1991 following the ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

But his election alarmed Somaliland, hostile to a man long seen as its arch foe in the neighbouring autonomous territory of Puntland. It warned Yusuf on Oct. 12 against any attempted aggression and said it was on alert against any move to reunite Somaliland with the rest of Somalia.

"Full mobilisation of our soldiers is going on and will continue until Abdullahi Yusuf's forces leave our territory," a spokesman for the Somaliland president said on Saturday, adding that fighting had stopped because of heavy rains.

A spokesman for Somaliland's Office of Defence said the death toll from the fighting, which erupted on Friday at the village of Adi Addeye, 30kms north of Las Anod, had risen to 109.

It was not immediately clear whether that figure referred to combat casualties or civilians or both. The spokesman said nine Somaliland soldiers were also killed in the fighting.

Las Anod has been a flashpoint during previous flare-ups between the two armies. Puntland and Somaliland have fought sporadic clashes for years over the ownership of several eastern areas of Somaliland claimed by Puntland's leaders as their own, on the basis of ethnicity.

But the cause of the fresh bout of fighting was not clear, with both sides accusing each other of starting it.

Matt Bryden, a senior analyst with the think-tank International Crisis Group (ICG), said Yusuf's elevation to the presidency had escalated tensions between the two territories.

"We at ICG predicted this was going to happen. It is probably going to get worse unless dialogue (on the disputed areas) is started."

Yusuf said through his spokesman he hoped the two territories would stop fighting and pursue dialogue.

"The president is very much concerned about the unfortunate clashes that happened yesterday which caused heavy losses of life and property," the head of Somalia's presidential press service Yusuf Mohamed Ismail told reporters in Nairobi.

FACT-FINDING MISSION: Yusuf was elected head of state by Somali lawmakers after two years of stop-start peace talks held in Kenya because of insecurity at home.

Yusuf, who has not yet been able to return to Somalia because of the continued insecurity, has asked the African Union to send 20,000 peacekeepers to disarm the militias controlling much of the failed state.

Ismail said Yusuf wanted an international fact-finding mission to establish the cause of the fighting and facilitate a ceasefire.

Yusuf said in a letter sent to neighbouring states and the United Nations on Friday that Puntland had told him Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991, was waging "an all-out war". -Reuters