Southern Somali state shutters main city, airport ahead of election - senior local official

The southern Somali state of Jubbaland has blocked access to the capital city Kismayo and its main airport ahead of Thursday's vote to elect a president of the semi-autonomous region, a senior regional official said on Tuesday.

"We have closed all the approaches to Kismayo to prevent the Somali federal government, which is using all possible ways including Ethiopian forces, to disrupt the Jubbaland election," Mohamud Sayid Aden, vice president of Jubbland, told Reuters.

Somalia's central government said on Saturday it would not recognize the result of the election in Jubbaland, a key battleground state for counter-terrorism operations, saying the candidate selection process violated the national constitution.