Mogadishu/Nairobi, Jan 13, 2007 - The Somali parliament meeting in the provincial town of Baidoa Saturday declared a 90-day state of emergency to help restore law and order, a government spokesman said.

The MPs also voted to legitimise the presence in Somalia of Ethiopian troops who have been helping government troops in fighting Islamic Courts militiamen since late December.

More than a third of parliamentarians did not attend the voting in Baidoa, around 250 kilometres north-west of Mogadishu.

The remaining Islamists meanwhile fled their last base in Ras Kamboni, near the Kenyan border, dispersing into surrounding forests, according to government spokesman Abdurahman Dinari.

At least four people were killed and six wounded Friday when militia loyal to warlords fought with the bodyguards of Somalia's President Abdullahi Yusuf outside the presidential palace in Mogadishu, witnesses said.

Dinari confirmed the fighting started when the militia tried to enter the palace to provide security for five warlords who were conferring with Yusuf on disarming the militia.

Dinari added that the warlords had agreed to disarm their militia and hand over their weapons to the government, adding: 'The government will take responsibility for the militia. we will train them as national forces and rehabilitate them.'

The Ethiopian air force has been operating in Somalia for the past week, while the US has said its planes have so far flown only one raid, targeting suspected al-Qaeda terrorists - but none of those sought had been killed or arrested.

No civilian victims had been sustained in the attack, the US ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, stressed.

Relief workers and witnesses said at least 74 people were killed during the attacks last week. However, Somalia's Foreign Minister Ismael Mohammed Hurreh said the figure was exaggerated as 'propaganda of the Islamists.' The United Nations in Nairobi spoke of 50 dead.

Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur