Stockholm - The Swedish cabinet Thursday said it was to ask parliament to approve the deployment of three vessels off Somalia to protect humanitarian aid shipments.

The mission to protect United Nations shipments operated by the World Food Programme (WFP) was launched in December.

In addition, it was aimed at tackling the surge in piracy in the Gulf of Aden.

"The Swedish participation is in response to a UN request to protect and secure WFP food shipments to Somalia," Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said.

Nairobi/Mogadishu - A moderate Somali Islamist group on Thursday seized control of a second town from main insurgent group al-Shabaab as the groups battle to fill gaps left by the departure of Ethiopian troops.

The fighting came as internationally backed plans to form a unity government and elect a new president gathered pace.

The government-aligned Ahlu Sunnah Waljamaca attacked the central town of Dhusamareb in the morning, Somali news portal Mareeg. com reported.

Nairobi/Mogadishu - Somali insurgents have installed strict Islamic law in Baidoa, the seat of the Somali government, after taking control of the town.

Main insurgent group al-Shabaab took over the town on Monday only hours after the pullout of Ethiopian troops who had been propping up the central government for two years.

Baidoa was one of the last remaining strongholds of the government, which now only controls parts of the capital, Mogadishu.

Nairobi/Mogadishu - Somali members of parliament on Monday voted to double the number of seats in parliament from 275 to include moderate Islamists and civil society.

The Islamist Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) will have 200 seats, while 75 members of civil society will take up the rest of the new seats.

The MPs, meeting in neighbouring Djibouti due to insecurity in Somalia, are also due to vote on whether to delay presidential elections due for the end of January.

Kampala  - Uganda and Burundi have put two battalions on standby to send to war-torn Somalia to fill the gap left by withdrawing Ethiopian troops, a Ugandan army spokesman said Friday.

"There is no time framework under which we will send our soldiers there," Major Felix Kulayigye told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "We have a battalion ready, and it is just a matter of waiting for the logistics and then we will go."

Nairobi/Mogadishu - Islamist insurgents have executed a Somali politician in the port town of Kismayo for working with Ethiopian forces occupying Somalia, reports said Friday.

The Islamists seized control of Kismayo last August and implemented Sharia law.

A 12-year-old girl was stoned to death for adultery there despite claims that she was in fact raped.

Radio Shabelle said that Abdirahaman Xaji Mohamed, also known as Wadiiro, was executed for working with a warlord sympathetic to the Ethiopians.