Somalia's Islamist movement has succeeded in doing in less than three months what no one has done there in 15 years — tamed the lawless capital Mogadishu.

They have opened the international airport and seaport, created a uniformed police force and begun issuing visas for visitors — feats of government in a land without it since 1991.

The Islamists' rapid expansion from there across south-central Somalia has given them authority the fragile government — holed up in its sole outpost in Baidoa — can only aspire to as its legitimacy wanes in their shadow, analysts say.

"Unfortunately, things have drifted away and Baidoa has not immediately heeded the call for dialogue. Things have festered in the meantime and they are on the verge of being irrelevant," said a diplomat involved in the Somali peace process, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Such was the case that few took any notice when Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi named a new cabinet, among them 21 ministers from the one dissolved this month for failure to do anything much after almost two years in office.

Compare that to the rise of the Islamist movement, which sprang from a union of sharia courts dispensing justice within the Hawiye clan in Mogadishu.

Since supplanting a warlord coalition they defeated as the rulers of Mogadishu on June 5, the Islamists have methodically grabbed more turf and consolidated their hold on security, the media, infrastructure and politics.

They took over key ports, shut down piracy rings threatening shipping, and tested the boundaries of semi-autonomous Puntland with a push to the government-allied northern region. That has pushed the fractious, Ethiopian-backed government into a corner.

"I think it is in a very weak position and relying very heavily on the Ethiopians. It would be better if they took some initiative, but I don't think they are capable," said Princeton Lyman, a former US ambassador to Ethiopia now with the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank.

Diplomats say the government has two options — go to Arab League-brokered talks with the Islamists, or fight.

"The only way the government can gain relevance is by opening up dialogue with the (Islamic) courts. The problem is, Ethiopia won't accept it," a European diplomat said.

It can — with Ethiopian troops — go to war with the better-armed Islamists, but to what end, the diplomat asked: "There is no military solution. Would you create a war in an area that is now peaceful for the first time in 15 years?"

With Eritrea backing the Islamists to frustrate rival Ethiopia, the prospect of a regional proxy war is looming and more players like Libya, Egypt, Iran, Yemen and Saudi Arabia have quietly joined the fray, diplomats say.

Though the Islamists say they will fight, war could cost them many of the areas they control now.

The government's international recognition is perhaps the only lure it has to bring more moderate Islamists into some kind of power-sharing deal.

"But you need a player to play that hand. If you don't have a player, you can't even stay in the game," the diplomat said.

Where infighting has crippled the government's ability to negotiate, the Islamists have kept their differences inside and the world guessing at which ideological slant they will take.

But keeping a coalition together in Somalia is a major challenge, as the 14 attempts at creating a government since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre's 1991 ouster have shown — and the Islamists are not immune to that. — Reuters