International

Former President of Somalia Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed is dead, relatives and Mogadishu Radio confirmed.

Mogadishu Radio quoted President Sheikh Sharif sending a message of condolence.

The retired leader died at a hospital in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in the early hours of Friday.

Col Yusuf was admitted to hospital last month, but had remained in coma for the past few days.

The former leader had a liver transplant in the UK in 1990s.

Col. Yusuf was elected President of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia in 2004, which he led until end of 2008.

He then went to Yemen, where he was granted an asylum by the former President Ali Abdalla Salah.

The late Yusuf rebelled against the former Somali Government of Maj. Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre, whose regime he fought a guerrilla war with in the 1980s.

However, when Somalia ended up in anarchy, he revived the semi-autonomous state of Puntland in northeastern Somalia.