Somalia's al-Qaida-linked Shebab militants on Saturday put on show the bodies of four "enemy" soldiers killed in combat in their stronghold of Kismayo, in southern Somalia, witnesses told Agence France Presse.

"We saw the bodies of four men in uniform put on show in Kismayo by the Shebab," a local man in the port town, Hassan Abdi Mohamud, told AFP by telephone.

Somalia's parliament will hold a presidential election on September 10, the final stage of a U.N.-backed process to set up a new administration for the war-torn country, an election official said Friday.

"September 10, 2012, is the day that the presidential elections of the Somali Federal Republic will take place," Osman Libah Ibrahim, spokesman for the presidential elections committee, told reporters.

Veteran Somali politician Mohamed Osman Jawari, a former minister, was elected as the speaker of the war-torn nation's new parliament, the outgoing interim speaker said Tuesday.

The United Nations-backed process, which will culminate in lawmakers choosing the country's new president, is the latest bid to end two decades of instability in the Horn of Africa nation.

At least five Somali children were killed and more than 10 others wounded in a large blast in a school on Monday, after they played with explosives left over from fighting in the area, officials said.

"There was a heavy explosion, we believe caused by an explosive device that they had been playing with," said Abdi Jinow Alasow, governor for the Middle Shabelle region.

Six candidates in Somalia are running for the powerful post of parliament speaker, officials said Saturday, as slow progress is made towards selecting a new administration for the war-torn nation.

The United Nations-backed process, which has already selected the majority of a new parliament and will culminate in a vote for president, is the latest bid to end two decades of instability in the Horn of Africa nation.

Somalia swore in its new parliament in a historic ceremony Monday policed by African Union troops, as the war-torn nation tries once more to end two decades of conflict.

The swearing-in, held on the tarmac of the capital's airport, was the culmination of a U.N.-backed process in which lawmakers were chosen by a group of 135 traditional elders.

Somalia's newly appointed legislature will elect the country's next president Monday, in a fresh bid to end two decades of unstable central government in the war-torn Horn of Africa nation.

The election of the new president would complete a complex process set in motion through a U.N.-backed agreement aimed at ending eight years of rule by Somalia's graft-riddled, Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and, it is hoped, would bring peace.

Somalia on Saturday took a step toward electing a new president after a committee overseeing the war-torn country's transition to a replacement government named more than 200 parliamentarians.

The legislature is due to elect the next president on Monday under a U.N.-backed agreement, putting an end to eight years of Somalia's graft-riddled, Western-backed Transitional Federal Government, or TFG.

U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon warned Tuesday that "intimidation and violence" could threaten the selection of a Somali parliament before a looming deadline, his spokesman said.

Ban highlighted a threat by the U.N. Security Council to take measures against any group or individual who undermines the stumbling reconciliation process in Somalia, which has not had a stable government in more than two decades.

A court in London on Wednesday jailed identical twin brothers for three years after they admitted a charge of fundraising for acts of terrorism abroad.

Mohammed Shabir Ali and Mohammed Shafiq Ali, 25, were part of a "network of support" for their older brother while he was at a terrorist training camp in Somalia, the Old Bailey heard.