However, at the time, the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA) was still hotly contending with other factions, including warlord Adan Madobe-Habsade, who captured Baidoa.
Islamist forces take Baidoa, the last major city controlled by the Transitional Government.
On July 20, 2006 it was reported by the BBC that a column of 100 Ethiopian military vehicles including armoured personnel carriers had crossed from the border town of Dolo Odo into Somalia.
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On 30 May 2005 forces loyal to Hasan Muhammad Nur Shatigudud, former RRA chairman, and Sheikh Adan Madobe, former first secretary, attacked the town, which is controlled by the forces of Muhammad Ibrahim Habsade.
Somalia's interim government was then resisting advances by the Islamic Courts Union forces north to the last unoccupied city of Baidoa.
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Reports in early January, 2002 indicated that around 300 Ethiopian soldiers were deployed in Garowe (capital of Puntland) with other Ethiopian troops reportedly moving into the neighbouring Bay region and around Baidoa.
The Australian commitment, known as Operation Solace, saw 1 RAR deployed for 17 weeks to a 17,000 square kilometres Humanitarian Relief Sector (HRS) centred on the township of Baidoa.
Baidoa |
He had little to do with the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), based in Baidoa, dealing mostly with his close allies in government, who included Mogadishu mayor and ex-ARPCT warlord Mohamed Omar Habeb, Mogadishu Police Chief and ex-ARPCT warlord Abdi Hasan Awale Qeybdiid, and the TFG security agency head Mohamed Warsame Darwish.
A member of the Rahanweyn clan (which is particularly well represented in the Baidoa area), and more specifically of the Leysan sub-clan, Robow also studied Islamic law in the 1990s at the University of Khartoum in Sudan.
The Siege of Baidoa (July 2008 - January 2009) was a military confrontation in which the Al-Shabaab militia laid siege to the headquarters of the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG).