"The Somalis are fed up with leaders appointed outside Somalia without the mandate of the vast majority of citizens at home," USRP leader Abdinur Ahmed Darman said.

He was addressing hundreds of Somalis gathered at Mogadishu airport on his return from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he has spent the past two years.

The USRP is a non-armed political grouping which supports the formation of a secular political administration in Somalia and accepts all Somalis within its ranks regardless of clan origin.

Darman was forced out of the country in late 2000 after the current Somali Transitional National Government (TNG) was established in neighbouring Djibouti by another peace conference.

The TNG leadership accused his party of being a stumbling block to realisation of peace in Somalia.

But Darman warned on Thursday that leaders appointed to serve Somalia by conferences held outside the country returned home without the resolve to end the crisis there.

Other USRP officials said that the planned conference, the 17th since Somalia plunged into anarchy after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in January 1991, may begin in the first week of June.

Observers in Mogadishu warned that "if the conference is held in Somalia as planned, it would undermine the ongoing national reconciliation conference in Kenya, under the mediation of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD)."

The Somali peace talks had started in the northwestern town of Eldoret on October 15, but were later switched to a suburb of the Kenyan capital, where they are still taking place.

But Darman told AFP: "I was hopeful that the talks in Kenya would possibly help the Somalis set up at least a reasonable administration, but when I saw the quality of most delegates and their eagerness to proclaim themselves leaders, the USRP decided to host another major conference at home."

Darman met a number of Somali elders attending the talks during a visit to Nairobi earlier this week, his party officials said.

"Home-brewed consultations is the only way for Somalia. We need home-elected leaders that have less foreign influence to form a legitimate government for the Somali people," said Darman, who is an American-trained civil engineer.

WAR.WIRE