FACTBOX-Key facts on Somali President Yusuf

(updates with resignation)

Oct 29 (Reuters) - Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi resigned on Monday, strengthening the hand of his political rival President Abdullahi Yusuf.

Here are key facts about Yusuf, 72:

* Born in December 1934, Yusuf was a career soldier and served as Somalia's military attache to the old Soviet Union in the 1960s. He was jailed for six years for refusing to take part in the 1969 coup that put Mohamed Siad Barre in power. He defected to Kenya after participating in a failed 1978 coup against Barre.

* Ethiopia's military regime detained him from 1985-1991 after he opposed their attempts to seize disputed territory along the Somalia-Ethiopia border. His imprisonment also involved a falling-out with Ethiopian strongman Mengistu Haile Mariam, who was said to have paid Yusuf at least $1 million to help destabilise Barre's regime.

* He led Somalia's autonomous enclave of Puntland from 1998-2004. The strategic territory was mostly peaceful under Yusuf's rule except from mid-2001 to mid-2002, when he was deposed over widespread objections to his attempt to lengthen his term of office. Yusuf is disliked by the leaders of neighbouring Somaliland because of sporadic clashes the two sides have fought over disputed border territory.

* In 2000, Yusuf opposed Somalia's attempt to restore order when an Arab-backed Transitional National Government was created at a conference of elders. Due to opposition from the country's many warlords, including Yusuf, the TNG's authority withered within months.

* In October 2004, in the 14th attempt since 1991 to restore central government, lawmakers elected Yusuf as president. Participants say Ethiopia, Kenya and Yemen backed his election with cash.

* Diplomats have said Yusuf has struggled to rid himself of his soldier's mindset when dealing with political problems, but his backers say he has been even-handed. His forceful nature, they say, is just what is needed to tame Somalia. In September 2006, Yusuf escaped the country's first suicide bomb attack, which killed five people in Baidoa. He blamed it on al Qaeda and Islamists.

* Gedi and Yusuf, who both ascended to power via Ethiopian manoeuvring, have long feuded. A truce since the last no-confidence vote in 2006 shattered earlier this year when they backed rival concerns looking for oil exploration rights.

* Diplomats say Yusuf, who has had a liver transplant, is in precarious health, while those close to him say the old soldier is still strong and that rumours of his impending death have been around since the late 1990s.