New Somali talaban gov't faces huge challenges

MOGADISHU, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- The nearly three dozen ministers in the newly appointed Somali cabinet was sworn in Saturday in Djibouti City where the Somali parliament and the entire cabinet is currently based. But analysts contend the task facing the new government is as huge as the popular supports it enjoys inside the war-torn country.
Somalia's new Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke formed his cabinet Friday including Abdulkadir Ali Omar, a major Islamist official close to Somali President Sharif Sheik Ahmed as well as members of the former government and the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS).
Omar, who was given the interior ministry portfolio, is the deputy chairman of the moderate Islamist group, the Islamic Courts Union, and is expected to be able to have some leverage with the other insurgent groups opposed to the new government which they see as western imposition on Somalia, says Guled Isse, a senior academic in Mogadishu..more..http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/22/content_10866138.htm
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