Somali gov't in talks with insurgents

MOGADISHU (AFP) - – Somalia's foreign minister on Saturday said the embattled government was in direct contact with extremist insurgents to try to end a deadly spiral of violence.

"The government maintains its plans for reconciliation and we have started talking to the rebel groups of Hezb al-Islam and the Shebab," Ali Ahmed Jama told reporters in Mogadishu.

"Some of them have already joined the government and we hope our mission for broader reconciliation will be fruitful soon," the minister, who was appointed last month, added without elaborating.

His comments came after a relative lull in the fighting that has devastated the capital since the Shebab, an Al-Qaeda-inspired group, and the more political Hezb al-Islam movement launched a military offensive on May 7.

"We are working closely with community groups and the country will be under government control soon," Jama said.

Both insurgent groups have vowed to continue their struggle against the internationally-backed transitional federal government of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed until the departure of African Union (AU) peacekeepers.

Since he was elected president in January, the young Islamist cleric has failed to assert his authority on the troubled Horn of Africa nation and owes his survival chiefly to the AU contingent's protection.

Neither insurgent group immediately reacted to the government's renewed offer for reconciliation but a Shebab commander said his group was continuing to beef up defences to prevent a counter-offensive.

Shebab fighters on Saturday started digging trenches to block the streets in some neighbourhoods of the capital.

"This is a military tactic, we are pre-empting any attacks from the enemies of Allah and have dug new trenches near the streets leading to their (the government's) positions," one commander told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Hundreds of people, including many civilians, have died in four months of intense fighting in Mogadishu and tens of thousands have been forced to flee the coastal city.

The droves of displaced people arriving in already congested camps have aggravated a dire humanitarian situation which the United Nations has described as the worst since civil conflict erupted in Somalia in 1991.