MOGADISHU, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamad Gedi said parliament will declare a period of martial law to maintain control of the country after Ethiopian and government troops wrested the capital from rival Islamists.

The fall of Mogadishu came after a 10-day offensive by government and allied forces to reclaim much of the territory seized by the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) since June.

While Gedi on Thursday celebrated a triumphant return to his home village outside Mogadishu for the first time since 2002, he acknowledged the chaotic country was far from stable.

"This country has experienced anarchy and in order to restore security we need a strong hand, especially with freelance militias," he said of the country which has not had an effective government since the 1991 ouster of a dictator.

Gedi told reporters in Mundul Sharey, a dusty village some 40 km (25 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, parliament would declare martial law on Saturday for a period of three months.

The flight of the Islamists was a dramatic turn-around in the Horn of Africa nation after they had spread across the south imposing sharia rule and confined the interim government to its base in Baidoa until less than two weeks ago.

Terrified of yet more violence in a city that has become a byword for chaos, some Mogadishu residents took to the streets to cheer government troops, while others hid. Some SICC fighters ditched their uniforms to avoid reprisals.

Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said the Islamists had fled to the southern port city of Kismayu and that the administration now controlled 95 percent of Somalia.

But analysts said a government victory was in no way certain and that the conflict could be about to take another turn.

"ASSYMETRICAL WAR"

"I think we're at a crossroads right now," said Ken Menkhaus, Horn of Africa specialist at Davidson College in Charlotte, North Carolina.

He said the government could exploit splits within the SICC and attract some members to join a unity government.

"But alternatively this could be the beginning of a new kind of war," Menkhaus said.

"One in which the Islamists are going to fight their kind of war ... an assymetrical war involving a combination of hit and run guerrilla attacks, car bombings, assassinations and possibly even selected acts of terrorism on other parts of East Africa."

With Eritrea accused of backing the Islamists, many feared the conflict could engulf the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia, like the United States, says the Islamists are supported by al Qaeda.

Ethiopian troops and air strikes were critical to the government's assault, experts say, and there is some question what will happen when Addis Ababa finally withdraws its forces.

"The idea that the Ethiopians can just bring this government from outside, plonk it down in the capital and walk away and everything will be solved -- I think that's very, very unrealistic," Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society, told Sky News in London.

Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed said his forces were united and determined to push out Ethiopian forces, but had retreated to avoid more bloodshed.

The SICC had brought a semblance of stability to Mogadishu after chasing U.S.-backed warlords from the city in June. Residents said order had collapsed with their departure.

Menkhaus said Ethiopia would probably remain in parts of Somalia for a time but would not want its troops in Mogadishu for long. He said, however, it would only withdraw if the transitional government forces (TGF) could keep order.

"The only way the TGF is going to do that is if it quickly builds some alliances with disaffected groups in Mogadishu. They cannot do it on their own, absolutely cannot," he added.

While aid flights were suspended temporarily when Somalia closed its border during the latest fighting, plans were now under way for their resumption, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in New York.

Thousands of families are reported to have fled their homes for other parts of Somalia to avoid the fighting but there has been no large-scale flow of war-related refugees into neighbouring Kenya, OCHA said. (additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington)

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