Somali government on Monday formally declared a state of emergency in the war torn country as government forces battle with insurgent fighters.

"The Somali government decided to impose state of emergency on the country so that we can overcome the difficult situation the country is going through," President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said in a press conference in his residence in Mogadishu.

The Somali president signed the declaration Monday after the Somali cabinet voted to impose the state of emergency on war-torn Somalia last week.

Somali government has been battling with Islamist insurgents for the past several weeks in a renewed fighting in the north of Mogadishu. Four senior Somali government officials were separately killed in insurgent attacks in last week while hundreds of civilians and combatants were either killed or wounded in the clashes.

Somali parliament speaker Sheikh Adam Madobe on Saturday appealed for neighboring states' troops be sent to Somalia to help Somali government fight Islamist rebels.

Somali president accused the radical Islamist Al-Shabaab movement of using foreign fighters in their war against the government. He said foreign terrorists from Al-Qaeda network are fighting alongside local Al-Shabaab group who he said want to make Somalia "a terrorist safe haven".

It is not clear what the state of emergency will mean for the Somalia government's fight with hard-line Islamist rebels trying to topple it and establish and Islamic state in the war wrecked east African nation.

Previous Somali government led by former Somali President Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed also declared a state of emergency on the country to help its fight with Islamist insurgents in early 2007, soon after allied Ethiopian and Somali government forces ousted an Islamist administration led by the current Somali President.

Last week the neighboring Kenyan government said it would not sit back and watch security in Somalia deteriorate further and vowed to take action while Ethiopia said an international mandate was needed to the Somali government's call for military help from its neighbors.

Somalia has been through nearly two decades of civil strife and the current Somali government is the fifteenth attempt at setting up strong central authority for the fragmented Horn of African country.

(Xinhua News Agency June 23, 2009)