Gunmen shot and killed a Somali lawmaker in the northern breakaway state of Puntland, where fighting between political and clan groups is on the rise recently, officials said Wednesday.

Security officials in Galkayo said Abdurahman Ahmed Haji was shot late Tuesday by men with handguns in front of the gate of his house.

The United States is building an array of secret new drone bases to conduct strikes against al-Qaida targets in Somalia and Yemen, according to the Washington Post.

One of the new installations is being set up in Ethiopia, a close U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamist Shebab that controls much of Somalia, while another is being established in the Seychelles, the Post reported late Tuesday.

A top U.S. anti-terror advisor said America's anti-terror campaign must go beyond "hot" battlefields in Afghanistan but legal curbs could constrain its action.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama's top advisor for counterterrorism and homeland security, also criticized Friday attempts by some lawmakers to ensure that military, rather than civilian courts deal with terror suspects.

Somali pirates have released a Danish family, with three teenage children, and two other Danes who they took hostage in February, the Danish foreign ministry said Wednesday.

"The seven Danes have been released and brought to safety," the ministry said in a statement, adding that all were doing well under the circumstances.

Somalia's disparate leaders signed Tuesday a "roadmap" for the formation of a government to replace the fragile transitional body that has failed to bring peace to the fragmented country.

"We are clearly committed to implement this roadmap, the Somali people have suffered a lot," said Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed after three days of talks at a heavily-guarded conference venue in Mogadishu.

Famine spread to a sixth southern Somali region and will likely extend further in the coming four months with 750,000 people at risk of death, the United Nations said Monday.

"Tens of thousands of people have already died, over half of whom are children," according to a statement from the U.N.'s food security analysis team for Somalia, which said the Bay region was now declared a famine zone.

At least 21 people have been killed and 31 others wounded in two days of heavy fighting on the border of Somalia proper and the breakaway state of Puntland, officials and witnesses said Friday.

Clashes broke out Thursday in the northern part of Galkayo town after Puntland soldiers raided neighborhoods searching for gunmen linked to Al Qaeda-inspired Shebab militants.

A delegation from the Saudi royal family arrived Saturday in Mogadishu on a one-day visit to see how best to assist the Horn of Africa country hit by famine and drought, officials said.

The delegation, led by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a nephew of King Abdullah and one of the kingdom's wealthiest men, arrived in late morning and visited camps for those displaced by the crisis and Banadir hospital, where acutely malnourished children have been dying in large numbers.

A Trans Mediterranean Airlines plane carrying 35 tons of food and medical aid headed to the Somali capital of Mogadishu to help the country’s famine victims, the National News Agency reported Friday.

NNA said the TMA flight took off from Rafik Hariri international airport at 7:00 am. The plane is carrying 33 tons of food and 2 tons of medicine and medical equipment.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Mogadishu Friday for the first visit by a major leader in nearly two decades to witness the devastation wrought by a famine in the Somali capital.

Somalia is the country worst affected in the Horn of Africa by a prolonged drought that has been officially declared a famine by the United Nations in five regions in the country, including Mogadishu itself.