African news gets little coverage in the United States or in the West for the matter so in case you missed it Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed on Wednesday signed into law a parliament-passed bill introducing the Islamic Sharia law in Somalia. The bill had been passed by Somalia's Parliament back in February and various opposition groups had been pressing for the President to sign the bill into law. Sharia law has been in use since 2006 in Puntland, a breakaway region in the northern part of the country. And in December, the Islamist armed group Almujahidin al-Shabaab had imposed their won rather brutal version of Sharia, in areas under their control in Somalia.

The news didn't calm things in Mogadishu where eight people were killed and fifteen others were wounded in fresh fighting that erupted between government forces and Islamist fighters of the aforementioned Al-Shabaab, a group that reportedly has ties to Al-Qaeda. I doubt the enactment of Sharia will change much in tormented Somalia.

Since his election in January, Sheikh Ahmed, a former rebel leader and a moderate Islamist, has been painstakingly trying to court Al-Shabaab without much success. There is little reason for them to negotiate since Al-Shabaab holds sway over more territory than the official government. The Islamists now control most of southern Somalia except for a few pockets in Mogadishu protected by African Union-backed government forces and fighters loyal to the president's former rebel faction.