-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Radical Islamist fighters seized control of the seat of Somalia 's U.N.-backed transitional government Monday , raiding the parliament building and demanding that several lawmakers publicly surrender , according to a journalist who witnessed the spectacle . Members of the Somali Transitional Federal Parliament are meeting in the neighboring country of Djibouti . Al-Shabab fighters took over the parliament building and the presidential palace in Baidoa , in the southwestern part of the country , a day after the Ethiopian troops who had backed up the transitional government left the country . The insurgents captured five members of parliament and paraded them through the city streets , with hundreds of residents looking on , the reporter said . The five were released after publicly surrendering . The situation left Somali lawmakers stranded in the neighboring country of Djibouti , where they often convene and where talks on forming a new government are under way . `` We have nowhere to return to , '' Parliament Speaker Aden Mohamed Nur told fellow lawmakers there . Somalia 's U.N.-backed transitional government took office after Ethiopian troops invaded the country at its request in December 2006 . The Ethiopian invasion ousted the Islamic Courts Union , an Islamist movement that had claimed control of the capital Mogadishu earlier that year . Ethiopia 's invasion had the blessing of the United States , which accused the Islamic Courts Union of harboring fugitives from al Qaeda . But various Islamist groups -- including the hard-line Al-Shabab , which the United States has designated a terror organization -- rejected the presence of Ethiopian forces and mounted an insurgent campaign against the Ethiopians and the transitional government . Ethiopia announced on Sunday that all its forces have left Somalia . Last week , as Ethiopian troops began pulling out of the Somali capital , forces from different Islamist groups -- including Al-Shabab -- took control of bases the Ethiopians abandoned around Mogadishu . The transitional government maintained very little control outside of Baidoa , even with the support of the Ethiopian forces . It has also been wracked by an internal power struggle between Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein and President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed , who resigned in December . In Washington , the State Department said U.S. officials are working to independently confirm the reports from Baidoa . But State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said members of one of the major Islamic factions , which signed a peace agreement in October in Djibouti , are already joining the transitional government . Duguid said the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia , another offshoot of the ICU , will choose up to 200 new members of the transitional parliament . Another 75 members will be drawn from other opposition groups , and the expanded parliament is expected to elect a new president soon . `` We remain deeply concerned about the ongoing violence in southern Somalia , which continues to claim innocent lives , '' Duguid said . `` Lasting peace and stability in Somalia can only be established through the reconciliation process underway through the Djibouti Agreement and rejection of extremism . '' With Monday 's takeover of Baidoa , the transitional government only has control of the presidential palace in the Somali capital of Mogadishu and the road to the airport in the capital city , which it holds with the help of African Union forces . CNN 's Ben Brumfield and journalists Mohamed Amiin Adow and Omar Faruk Osman contributed to this report .