by Abdurrahman Warsameh

    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 Premier Omar Abdirashid Shermarke formed his cabinet Friday including Abdulkadir Ali Omar, a major Islamist official close to Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed as well as members of the former government and the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS).

Somalia's President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed arrives for a news conference at the police headquarters in Mogadishu Feb. 9, 2009.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

 

    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.

    "The inclusion of Abdulkadir Ali Omar in the cabinet may give the new Somali government a chance to influence the other groups since one of their comrades in arms was appointed to the post of the interior and it will be him who will have to deal with them," Isse told Xinhua.

    Despite the overwhelming popular support within Somalia and the international diplomatic backing the new Somali leadership received following the election of the moderate Islamist President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed last month, two main insurgent groups, the newly formed Hezbul Islam and the hardline group of Al-Shabaab, which controls much of southern Somalia, opposed the new administration.

    The groups vowed to continue their fight against Somali government forces and the African Union peacekeeping forces in Mogadishu which they see as an occupation force. Both groups say the government does not intend to implement the Islamic Sharia law which they want to impose on the whole country.

    The groups' fighters have carried out a number of attacks on the African Union peacekeepers and Somali government forces in Mogadishu since the election of the Somali president who ordered the troops to exercise self restraint and not respond to the attacks a move widely welcomed by local residents and community leaders.

    The new administration also faces mammoth humanitarian situation to deal with as the country has seen the worst violence for the past two years as insurgent fighters battled with Ethiopian troops that crossed into Somalia in late 2006 to help Somali government topple an Islamist administration led by the current President.

    The violence left nearly 16,000 civilian dead and more than one million people displaced from their homes while nearly 3.5 million, almost half of the country's population, are in need of humanitarian aid, which has not been getting through because of a rampant piracy off the war-torn country and internal fighting in the country.

    "The task waiting the new government in terms of unfinished reconciliation with its remaining adversaries and the worsening humanitarian situation is as huge as the support it currently enjoys but with commitment and determination I believe they can realize peace in this part of the world," said Dahir Farah, a secondary school teacher in Mogadishu.