Ali Mohamed

Mogadishu's two rival warlords signed a U.N.-sponsored cease-fire accord Tuesday aimed at stopping three months of fighting in the Somali capital. But they failed to agree on how the truce should be monitored. "The cease-fire agreement is effective immediately, but in practical terms, the observation team is not yet there," U.N. Undersecretary General James Jonah, told reporters on his return to Nairobi.

A day after the United Nations announced that it was giving up on peace talks for Somalia, the country's two most powerful warlords agreed Thursday to arrange a cease-fire and set up a new government. But the agreement between Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid and Ali Mahdi Mohamed does not ensure stability. Previous agreements have quickly fallen apart.

A Libyan court sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor Thursday to death by firing squad after convicting them of deliberately infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the virus that causes AIDS. Bulgaria called the verdicts "absurd" and was joined in protest by the European Union and the United States. In 2001, Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi said the children were infected as part of an experiment ordered by the U.S. or Israeli secret services.

A former Army sergeant was secretly arrested last month and is being investigated on charges that he trained Islamic militants linked to alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, a law enforcement source said Friday. Egyptian native Ali Mohamed, 46, who arrived in the United States in 1985 and spent three years in the military, was taken into custody on charges that have yet to be made public. Mohamed allegedly trained the militants well before the attacks in August on U.S.

Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside. That land, in the opinion of geologists and industry sources, could yield significant amounts of oil and natural gas if the U.S.-led military mission can restore peace to the impoverished East African nation.

The United States has ordered the expulsion of a Sudanese diplomat suspected of aiding terrorists who plotted to blow up the United Nations and assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. U.S. officials told Ahmed Yousif Mohamed, a second secretary at the Sudanese mission to the United Nations, on Tuesday that he had 48 hours to leave the country, James P. Rubin, a spokesman at the U.S. mission, said Wednesday.

A former Army sergeant who taught Special Forces troops about Muslim culture was indicted on charges of conspiring with Saudi militant Osama bin Laden to kill Americans abroad. Ali Mohamed was charged Wednesday with acting with others--including Bin Laden's group Al Qaida, or the Base--to plan the slayings of U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia and Somalia, and August's bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Aug.

Thousands of war-weary Somalis thronged the streets of this capital Monday to celebrate a weekend peace agreement by the country's main faction leaders aimed at ending years of bloody conflict. The warlords of the main clans met at one of the city's hotels, where they pledged to dismantle the physical and psychological barriers that have carved up the troubled Horn of Africa nation into a series of clan-ruled fiefdoms since 1991.

President Ali Mahdi Mohamed of Somalia was reportedly overthrown Monday after two days of ethnic fighting between rival forces of the ruling United Somali Congress that seized power 10 months ago. Diplomats and aid workers, quoting reports on state-run Radio Mogadishu, said that clan rival Gen. Mohamed Farrah Aidid had toppled Mahdi. The reports could not be independently confirmed.

Ali Mahdi Mohamed, a 52-year-old hotel owner, was sworn in today as interim president of Somalia, assuming office amid the sound of gunfire in a capital shattered by a monthlong rebel offensive. Mahdi, who was instrumental in organizing opposition to ousted President Mohamed Siad Barre, said his first task would be to select a prime minister who would form an interim government from all the opposition groups, armed and unarmed, that fought to depose Siad Barre after 21 years of despotic rule.