MOGADISHU, Oct 16, (AFP): Somali local leaders were negotiating Saturday with the kidnappers of a Briton snatched by gunmen near the Ethiopian border, his Somali aide said. Bashir Lugey, who was released unharmed following the kidnapping late Thursday, told AFP by telephone he was back home in the central town of Adado, the scene of fierce factional fighting this week. “I’m free and back in Adado now, but that won’t make any sense to me since my colleague is still in captivity,” he said. “We have hopes that he will be released soon as local clan elders and members from the (local) administration are working hard to achieving that.”

Lugey added, “The negotiation efforts have already started and the local people who are very sorry about the unfortunate incident are now conducting efforts to free him from the militants.” He gave no details of the efforts of the local elders or the identity of the kidnappers. The unnamed British security expert, who also has Zimbabwean nationality, was working for the British Save the Children charity. Witnesses and colleagues said heavily-armed men in three vehicles burst into their compound in the Adado region on Thursday night. Security guards put up no resistance and no shots were exchanged.

Save the Children spokeswoman Anna Ford said Friday the charity had been assessing the possibility of establishing a relief programme for malnourished children and their families in the area.
“We are extremely concerned about the welfare of those being held and urgently call upon whoever is holding them captive to release them unconditionally,” she said.
Adado was engulfed by heavy clashes Friday when fighters of the Sufi sect Ahlu Sunna attacked and captured the town from a local militia that had been controlling it.
Local authorities said the fighters had later abandoned Adado and headed south to help regain control of Dhusamareb, which had fallen to radical Islamic Shebab militia on Friday.
The authorities said the Shebab had in their turn abandoned Dhusamareb because they were outnumbered.

Meanwhile, al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab Islamists wrested control Friday of a key town in central Somalia from the Sufi sect Ahlu Sunna, officials and residents said.
The town of Dhusamareb is one of Ahlu Sunna’s strongholds and the two militant groups have previously fought over it.
“We have taken control of Marergur village and passed into Dhusamareb where our forces are now in control. The enemy fled and the Mujahidin fighters took the city in a matter of minutes without casualties,” Sheik Mohamed Ibrahim, a senior Shebab commander, told AFP.
Witnesses said most of the Sufi militants normally in Dhusamareb went to Adado, another town in the region, where they toppled a clan militia that was in control there.

“The Shebab fighters came into the city after brief fighting with the Ahlu Sunna outside the city and the Sufi militants fled the town,” said Adan Wardhere, a Dhusamareb resident.
Ahlu Sunna was reportedly sending men from Adado back into Dhusamareb.
The Shebab control large swathes of southern and central Somalia and has wrested control of much of the capital Mogadishu, where it has relentlessly attacked government and African Union forces.
The Ahlu Sunna was founded in 1991 to promote moderate Sufi Islam in Somalia. It renounced a posture of non-violence in early 2009 to take on the radical Shebab and their allies from the Hezb al-Islam movement.
The Ahlu Sunna does not fully recognise Somali President Sherif Sheikh Ahmed’s transitional government but it too wants to rid Somalia of the Shebab and its al-Qaeda-inspired ideology.