LONDON (AlertNet) - After 13 years of civil war, has Somalia finally turned a corner?

An interim parliament, carefully comprised of representatives from Somalia’s four major clans and minority groups, has elected a president. But ongoing instability in the lawless country means the new government is located in neighbouring Kenya, which has served as the nerve centre of troubled peace talks for the past two years.

The real test will be installing a functioning government in Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu, where rival clans vie for influence and control.

Who is the new president?

Somalia’s new president is Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the leader of the Darod clan and first president of the northern Puntland Regional State, which declared its independence from Somalia in 1998.

A powerful warlord, he’s known for founding one of the first armed groups to challenge the rule of former dictator Muhammed Siad Barre. He supports the U.S.-led “war on terrorism”, is no friend to radical Islamic groups within Somalia and enjoys the backing of the region’s biggest military power, Ethiopia.

In 2002, his forces clashed with rival militia in Puntland, when Yusuf refused to relinquish power at the official end of his presidency.

Not surprisingly, there’s a lot riding on Yusuf’s shoulders. But his past might pose problems for Somalia’s future.

Matt Bryden, an analyst for the a Belgium-based think tank International Crisis Group, told Reuters that the new government would fail if Yusuf projected himself as a strongman.

“If he falls back on his anti-terror credentials and his external backing, without building a consensus at home, then it’s not going to work… But if he really does start to look like a conciliator, going beyond merely appointing rivals to his cabinet, then this will have a chance.”

What challenges will Yusuf or any future Somalian president face?

Yusuf or any future president of Somalia will need to find some middle ground with the northwestern region of Somaliland, the most stable part of the country, which claimed independence from Somalia in 1991.

Somaliland, which is not recognised by the international community as an autonomous state, will be under pressure from a new government in Mogadishu to rejoin Somalia.

Representatives from Somaliland have already predicted clashes with the new government.

There is also a sticking point between Somaliland and Yusuf’s Puntland over territory that both breakaway regions claim as their own.

Tension among the country’s most powerful clans could prevent a smooth transition in Mogadishu.

Yusuf, a Darod, is expected to choose a prime minister from the Hawiye clan, but even this is unlikely to patch things up between the clans. Old feuding and property disputes between the Darod and Hawiye in Mogadishu and across the country will need to be settled.

What role has inter-clan conflict played in the country’s decline?

Somalia’s four major clans -- the Dir, Isaaq, the Hawiye and the Darod -- are collectively known as Samaale. They are primarily nomadic and live in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti. (The original Somali nation was divided up between British, French, Italian and Ethiopian colonies, which accounts for the spillover of Samaale into neighbouring countries today.)

Two other clans, the Digil and the Raxanweyn, are known as Sab. Most Sab live in villages in southern Somalia where they keep livestock and farm.

Inter-clan fighting has devastated the country in the past decade. Though competition between Somalia’s clans is nothing new, the craven manipulation of clan and sub-clan loyalties by Siad Barre, a Darod who ruled Somalia for over 20 years, fed the fire. When Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, the scene was already set for widespread violence.

The group that overthrew Barre, the United Somali Congress (USC), which had been drawn from the Hawiye clan, then split over who should rule.

A wealthy businessman, Ali Mahdi Mohammed, backed by the Hawiye’s Abgal sub-clan, nominated himself president.

But General Mohammed Farah Aideed, the USC’s main military commander backed by another sub-clan, the Habr Gedir, wanted power for himself.

The fighting that ensued in the early 1990s led to a bloodbath, widespread humanitarian disaster and the killing of thousands of civilians.

According to Africa Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, 14,000 people were killed and 27,000 wounded in Mogadishu between November 1991 and February 1992.

What did the international community do to respond?

In January 1992, the United Nations imposed an arms embargo, but it was too little too late. By then, Mogadishu and the rest of the country had been divided up by rival clans.

Numerous ceasefires failed, and civilians continued to suffer. The rich agricultural lands in the south were devastated, which led to famine.

U.N. peacekeepers and U.S. troops, part of Operation Restore Hope, attempted to deliver food aid and relief supplies to the ailing population, but the situation went awry when forces loyal to General Aideed ambushed a group of Pakistani peacekeepers, killing 24.

The U.N. retaliated by calling for Aideed’s arrest, and the Somali civil war became a war between Aideed and the U.N. and U.S.

In 1993, the conflict broadened to include other militia after U.S. helicopters, in an attempt to attack a house in Mogadishu where clan leaders were meeting, killed Somali civilians.

Operation Restore Hope ended after 18 U.S. soldiers were killed in street-to-street fighting with Somalis, some loyal to Aideed and some not, infuriated by the indiscriminate killing. The U.N. abandoned its mission in 1995.

All attempts to bring the war to a close have since failed. A Transitional National Government (TNG), established in October 2000, did not unify the country or win support.

In fact, the TNG was charged with being unrepresentative, and clans took up arms against it, causing more fighting in Mogadishu and other areas in the south. Not surprisingly, it was unarmed non-combatants who were most vulnerable.

How many Somalis have been displaced by the war?

According to the U.S. Committee on Refugees, some 280,000 Somali refugees and asylum seekers live in about two dozen countries, including Kenya, Yemen, Ethiopia and Djibouti.

An even larger number -- about 350,000 persons, or five percent of the Somali population -- are internally displaced. Most are from minority groups in the south, where majority clans fight over fertile land.

The U.N. estimates that the biggest concentration of displaced people is in Mogadishu, where between 100,000 and 250,000 people live in crowded squatter settlements.

The delivery of humanitarian assistance to internally displaced people and others is extremely difficult in the midst of political jockeying, clan warring and violence.

Insecurity in the capital and elsewhere is rife, and aid workers run the risk of being kidnapped or killed, their vehicles stolen or looted.

Most aid agencies have pulled out of Somalia as a result. The Somali Red Crescent is the only agency operating across the country.

What’s life like in Mogadishu today?

With no civil administration to speak of, no government to provide social services, life in Mogadishu is a struggle. According to the U.N. World Health Organisation, cholera is endemic due to the absence of basic sanitation and a centralised water supply system.

The city’s infrastructure is dilapidated, buildings are crumbling and territory is still divided among opposing armed groups.

Intermittent fighting drives up the prices of food and other basic needs.

But things do seem to be improving. Self-appointed Islamic courts practising Shari'ah law have provided some stability. Backed by clans, the courts have helped clean Mogadishu’s streets of bandits and roadblocks.

But the courts have come under criticism from human rights groups.

It remains to be seen how or even if the courts, which were set up as a stop-gap measure, will be incorporated into the judiciary system of a secular government.