Somalia's prime minister said on Monday he was ordering all security forces to take orders directly from him, potentially deepening an ongoing dispute with President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.

The dispute is widely seen as distracting the government from fighting an Islamist insurgency and prompted the United States to call for calm. 

The prime minister also accused President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed on Monday of staging a coup attempt as a simmering political dispute between both leaders of the Horn of Africa country escalated.

"I want to share with Somalis that the steps taken by former President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo were an open coup attempt against the government and the national constitution," Prime Minister Mohammed Hussein Roble said in a statement posted on the Facebook page of Somalia state news agency SONNA. 

Reporting by Abdi Sheikh