Somali

A Hizbul Islam official called Bare Ali Bare was on Tuesday gunned down by unknown assailants in Mogadishu 's Bakara Market, a stronghold for Somali rebel fighters.

According to witnesses who spoke to Garowe Online, the official was killed by four gunmen armed with pistol inside the market, which populated by people at the time.

The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia on Sunday called for the World Food Programme (WFP) to continue its operations in Somalia, just hours after Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen issued press released suspending whole activities if the agency in southern Somalia.

Somalia's president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has called on international community to assist his fragile government in restoring peace and stability in the war-torn country.

Ahmed acknowledged that his government has no powers to pacify the country from the powerful insurgents, urging world to urgently help.

Officials of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen have Saturday said that the World Food Program (WFP) will not operate in the areas under the control of their administration in Somalia until it takes commandments ordered earlier.

The Islamic administration of Al-Shabaab that controls Somalia's southern regions of Jubba has on Sunday declared holy war on Kenya over reports that Nairobi is training Somali troops.

At least two people have been killed and about 10 others have been wounded in heavy shelling targeted at neighborhoods in the north of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, witnesses told Shabelle radio on Sunday.

Reports say that all the people who were wounded and injured during the shelling were civilians who were one of the few residents remained in the neighborhoods in north of the capital.

Some 2,500 Somali troops have finished training in neighbouring Kenya and are ready to join a Somali government offensive against rebels, which control much of the war-torn country.

According to Kenyan officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the new recruits are only waiting their final assessments before actual deployment.

Sheik Yusuf Mohamed Siad better known as (Inda'adde), the state minister of transitional government for the defense affairs said in an interview with Shabelle radio that the TFG had welcomed the decision of the United Nation's decision for extending the presence of the AU troops in Somalia.

Mogadishu residents have welcomed plans by the interim government to step up the integration of an earlier, ousted, regime's security forces into its own army.

An official speaking for Somalia's Attorney General Office says a case against former Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi will be the first one, in series that face prominent persons, expected to be presented before the high court in the coming days.

An estimated 63,000 people have been displaced from their homes in Somalia in just the first few weeks of this year due to ongoing fighting, the United Nations refugee agency reported today.

Some 14,000 of them were uprooted in the capital, Mogadishu, where clashes last week between Government forces and Al-Shabaab and Hisb-ul-Islam militants left at least 10 people dead, including children.

Somalia's president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said his country lacks the international support it needs to prevent powerful Al-Qaeda-backed insurgents from overthrowing his fragile government.

Sharif said his government only control pocketful of Mogadishu with the rest including southern Somalia under the hands of Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam, the two main insurgent groups.

A Mogadishu-based right group says the death toll from the recent fighting between Somali armed groups in central Somalia has reached 138 with more than 344 others, mostly fighters from both sides injured.

Elman Human Right and Peace Group says 63,000 residents have also being displaced in the fighting which was described worst to hit the central regions.

At least 30 dead bodies have been found in Dusomareb town where heavy fighting between both rival sides continued on Saturday, just as calm returned to areas where the clashes happened in central Somalia, witnesses said on Sunday.

Somalia's State Minister for Defense, Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siad aka Indha Adde says Yemeni rebels have sent arms to Somalia's Islamist Al Shabaab insurgents to help fuel the insurgence.

Indha Adde said the boats carrying weapons from Yemen had docked in the southern port city of Kismayo, which is under Al Shabaab's control.