Jan 31 (Reuters) - Moderate Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed won the Somali presidency on Saturday in a parliamentary vote.

The Horn of Africa nation has had no effective government since warlords ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

Here are some details:

* ISLAMIST RULE:

-- In June 2006, an Islamist militia called the Somalia Islamic Courts Council seized Mogadishu after defeating U.S.-backed warlords. Washington accused the Islamists of having links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

-- With tacit U.S. approval, Somalia's neighbour Ethiopia sent troops to defend the government against an Islamist attack on Baidoa in Dec. 2006. The force advanced rapidly, taking Mogadishu and driving the Islamists to Somalia's southern tip.

-- Earlier this week, the last Ethiopian troops, who had been supporting the government withdrew from Somalia exacerbating the violent power struggle between rival Islamist factions.

-- A moderate Sunni group captured the central trading town of Dusamarebon on Thursday from the hardline al Shabaab group that seized the seat of parliament in Baidoa after Ethiopian troops left. Al Shabaab has vowed to impose its strict version of Islamic law throughout Somalia.

* INTERIM GOVERNMENT:

-- Lawmakers had elected warlord Abdullahi Yusuf president and Ali Mohamed Gedi prime minister to run the 14th attempt at government since the fall of Barre.

-- Gedi resigned in Oct. 2007 and was succeeded by Nur Hassan Hussein as prime minister. Yusuf sacked Hussein in Dec. 2008 and named former interior minister Mohamed Mohamud Guled as premier, snubbing a vote by parliament to reinstate Hussein.

-- Yusuf resigned on Dec. 29 and speaker Sheikh Aden Madobe took over as interim president.

* BLOODSHED AND HUNGER:

-- Violence in Somalia has killed more than 16,000 people since the start of 2007 and uprooted 1 million. A third of the population rely on emergency food aid and the chaos has helped fuel kidnappings and piracy off the coast.

-- For months, the transitional government and African Union have pleaded with the United Nations to send a robust peacekeeping force that could take over from 3,500 AU troops, who say they are incapable of stabilising Somalia.

* PEACE DEAL IN DOUBT:

-- The government had initialled a peace deal in June 2008 with some opposition figures. The deal called for the rapid deployment of U.N. peacekeepers.

-- August 2008 talks in Djibouti were rejected by a hardline opposition faction and al Shabaab militants suspected of being behind a wave of car bombings.

* PIRACY:

-- Pirates have been causing havoc in the Gulf of Aden, which connects Europe to Asia and the Middle East via the Suez Canal, hijacking dozens of ships last year and making tens of millions of dollars in ransom payments.

-- The attacks have triggered an unprecedented deployment by foreign navies including China and the European Union. The U.S. Navy on Jan. 8 also announced a new task force specifically dedicated to combating piracy in the region. The effort has lowered the frequency of successful hijackings, but on Thursday another tanker was hijacked.

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