Islamist fighters seize Somali government seat

CNN) -- Radical Islamist fighters seized control of the seat of Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government Monday, raiding the parliament building and demanding that several lawmakers publicly surrender, according to a journalist who witnessed the spectacle,Al-Shabab fighters took over the parliament building and the presidential palace in Baidoa, in the southwestern part of the country, a day after the Ethiopian troops who had backed up the transitional government left the country.
The insurgents captured five members of parliament and paraded them through the city streets, with hundreds of residents looking on, the reporter said. The five were released after publicly surrendering.
The situation left Somali lawmakers stranded in the neighboring country of Djibouti, where they often convene and where talks on forming a new government are under way.
"We have nowhere to return to," Parliament Speaker Aden Mohamed Nur told fellow lawmakers there.
Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government took office after Ethiopian troops invaded the country at its request in December 2006. The Ethiopian invasion ousted the Islamic Courts Union, an Islamist movement that had claimed control of the capital Mogadishu earlier that year. more..http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/01/26/somalia.takeover/index.html?eref=edition_africa