(Adds diplomat, paragraphs 5-6, details)

By Abdi Sheikh and Aweys Yusuf

MOGADISHU, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Somali gunmen seized the acting Libyan ambassador and a colleague while they shopped in Mogadishu's busy Bakara market on Saturday but freed them hours later, embassy staff said.

The brief kidnapping coincided with the swearing in of 15 new ministers and five deputies by parliament as part of a new cabinet designed to help the interim government build solid institutions before elections due in late 2009.

Kidnapping was already common in Somalia before a year-long insurgency pitting an Islamic Courts group against the government and its Ethiopian military backers broke out, triggering fighting that has killed at least 6,500 people.

Ten men armed with pistols grabbed acting Ambassador Naji Ahmed Subeyr and his chief of staff Fatahi Mohamed Mustafa as they shopped in the market, according to embassy officials.

"We were captured and then released by Islamic Courts youth," Subeyr told Reuters at his embassy in Mogadishu.

"They freed us after we told them we were Libyans ... They treated us well, and handed us to Bakara businessmen to take us home safely."

Bakara, the seaside Somali capital's biggest market, is a hotbed of insurgents fighting the Somali interim government and its Ethiopian military backers.

Kidnappings are common in Somalia, and captives are generally treated well because their captors consider them an investment for which they can earn a ransom.

In the south-central trading town of Baidoa, where the Somali parliament still sits because of insecurity in Mogadishu, the bulk of a new cabinet was sworn in.

"I urge all the ministers sworn in today to execute their duties honestly because Somalia needs to be rescued from the crisis," Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein told reporters.

He still needs three ministers to fill his 18-member cabinet, replacing a larger one criticised by diplomats as bloated. That one fell apart when some clans said they had been snubbed and Hussein disbanded the rest of it.

On another front, political turmoil in neighbouring Kenya prevented the deployment in Somalia of members of an African Union peacekeeping mission.

About 600 Burundian peacekeepers due to join some 1,800 Burundian and Ugandan troops there as part of the mission could not fly because of a fuel shortage caused by the Kenya crisis.

"The rest of a Burundi battalion was due to leave on Saturday and Sunday but because of the jet fuel shortage, their deployment has been postponed," Army spokesman Col. Adolphe Manirakiza told Reuters.

Burundi sent 190 troops as an advance team two weeks ago, to join 1,600 Ugandan peacekeepers there. Burundi has pledged a total of 1,700 troops. (Additional reporting by Ahmed Mohamed in Baidoa; Editing by Stephen Weeks)

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