Carnival mood greeted exiled Somalia President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Ghedi on their arrival Thursday in the Jowhar town for a week-long tour to the chaotic Horn of Africa nation.

Several thousand cheering and dancing Jowhar residents lined the 15-km stretch in the airfield in Jowhar, north of Mogadishu, to welcome the president's plane, waving Somali flags and posters of the president and prime minister as well as placards, reports reaching here said Thursday.

"Welcome to your country," "The people of Jowhar welcome the transitional federal government," "Long live the president and the prime minister," read some of the banners in the chanting throng.

The president and the prime minister are leading a high powered delegation who will be examining the possibility of relocating the interim government from Kenya.

It is unclear whether the leaders will visit the bullet-riddled Mogadishu during the visit because of security concerns.

The Somali leaders flew out from Nairobi, Kenya, in separate planes and touched down by 12:30 (0930 GMT) in Jowhar, 90 km north of the capital.

As he stepped off the plane, President Yusuf Ahmed reportedly received a 21-gun salute from single cannon as police in military uniform stood to attention.

The delegation then headed to the center of Jowhar, the provincial capital of the Middle Shabeele region, amid cheers and applause from the crowd lining the road.

Yusuf was expected to travel later to his home region of Puntland in northeast Somalia but was to follow a separate itinerary from Ghedi, who was to visit at least three other towns on his five-day tour -- Beletwern, Baidoa and Galkayo.

The planned trip by Ghedi and Yusuf marked the first time that they stepped on Somali territory since their election in October 2004.

Military experts from various African countries are currently in Somalia to assess the situation ahead of a proposed deployment of a peace mission there.

However, considerable divisions remain within the cabinet about whether they can base themselves in the unstable capital.

The regional Inter-governmental Authority on Development, whose members are Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda, sponsored two years of peace talks between various Somali clans and factions that culminated in the formation of the transitional federal government.

The process ended a 14-year period when Somalia lacked a functional central government.

The new government, which includes several faction leaders, has not been able to relocate from Nairobi to Somalia, citing security considerations. However, it has come under increasing pressure from the Kenyan government and western diplomats to do so.