Somalia's Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke has reshuffled and expanded his cabinet in an attempt to end in-fighting as the government faces a stubborn insurgency, officials said on Tuesday.

Ali Jama Ahmed and Abdalla Boss Ahmed were named as the new foreign and defence ministers respectively. Both men held these posts in the former transitional federal government. In addition, the finance portfolio was split into two positions with Abdirahman Omar Osman, the former protocol chief in President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's office, being named treasury minister alongside Finance Minister Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden.

Somalia has been mired in civil war for 18 years, and the president's administration controls only small pockets of the capital Mogadishu. It is fighting rebel groups including al Shabaab, which the United States says is al Qaeda's proxy in Somalia, with the help of pro-government militia across southern and central regions.

Haven for militants
Western security agencies say Somalia has become a haven for Islamist militants plotting attacks in the region and beyond. Violence has killed more than 18,000 civilians since the start of 2007 and driven another 1 million from their homes.

Abdirasaq Adan, a Mogadishu-based analyst, said the cabinet reshuffle would probably change little on the ground."It has fallen below the expectations of the tribes, the local people and the international donor community," he said."The reshuffle we were waiting for was a kind of a fresh start with new faces, but this one is repeating the same faces."