MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) – Thousands of flag-waving Somalis lined the streets of this war-scarred city Sunday to welcome representatives of a new government formed in neighboring Kenya in a bid to end 14 years of anarchy in this Horn of Africa nation.

Shariif Hassan Sheikh Aden, who heads a 275-member transitional parliament, and a delegation of 60 lawmakers and Cabinet ministers landed at an airstrip run by one of Mogadishu’s main warlords. The group will assess conditions for the government’s relocation from Nairobi, Kenya, where it operates because many of its members consider Mogadishu too dangerous.

About 30 lawmakers arrived last week to prepare for the visit.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi also is expected to arrive in coming days. But President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, a northerner viewed with suspicion in the former capital, has not said when he will return.

Clan elders, faction leaders, businessmen and other civil society representatives gave the delegation a warm welcome with much hugging and backslapping. A police band played the national anthem and aging military officers formed an honor guard.

Leaders of the city’s Islamic courts, seeking to establish their influence in the absence of a national authority, declined to attend, saying they could only support a government founded on Islamic law.

The delegation drove through town in a large convoy past thousands of cheering, clapping Somalis waving flowers, flags and branches with green leaves. The scores of vehicles included pickup trucks full of armed militia fighters.

The convoy stopped at a square crowded with more than 10,000 people so the delegation could exchange greetings with them.

Ali Abdallah Mohamed, who fled fighting in central Somalia, brought his seven children to watch the convoy go by.

“Since my children were born, they have never seen a government,” he said, smiling.

Somalia has had no central government since 1991, when opposition leaders ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. They then turned on each other, carving the nation of 7 million people and its former capital into a patchwork of heavily armed clan-based fiefdoms.

A new government was formed last year after complex negotiations between warlords, clan elders and civil society leaders. But members already are divided over whether international peacekeepers are needed to secure their return to Somalia and which city to base themselves in.

The government has no budget, no civil service or even buildings to meet in here.

On Saturday, the Cabinet approved a presidential request for African Union troops to help disarm rival militias, rebuild national security forces and protect his government.

But the request angered many in Mogadishu, where the deployment of American and United Nations troops in the 1990s sparked some of the worst fighting of the war.

Osman Hassan Ali Atto, a warlord-turned-Cabinet minister, was quoted on local radio Saturday as saying Mogadishu residents would never accept a return of foreign troops. Some Islamic militants have threatened to attack any foreign troops that come here.

But others fear the major factions will not disarm among themselves.

The African Union has agreed to send a force, but officials privately say it will be limited in size and scope. Uganda has promised 2,000 troops.

Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Sudan also have pledged to support the peace mission.

AP-ES-02-06-05 1136EST