/ 5 January 2007

Diplomats back Somali peacekeeping mission

Western and African diplomats called on Friday for the urgent dispatch of peacekeepers to Somalia to stabilise the country after a two-week war in which Ethiopian-backed government forces routed Islamist fighters.

The International Contact Group on Somalia, which includes the United States, European and African nations, held closed-door talks in Nairobi with Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf amid fresh concerns over Islamist threats to carry on fighting and the return of warlord militias to Mogadishu.

”The group felt clearly it was important there not be a security vacuum,” US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer told reporters after the meeting, which she chaired.

”We felt therefore that it was urgent to get a stabilisation force into Somalia.”

Frazer said Washington was donating $40-million, $16-million of which would help fund the proposed African peacekeeping force. It is a major reversal for the US, which in 2005 threatened to veto any foreign peacekeeping deployment proposed to the United Nations Security Council.

In a communique the group welcomed an offer of forces from Uganda, which has said it could send a battalion if the move is approved by its Parliament.

Friday’s meeting came hours after a purported audio tape by al-Qaeda’s deputy leader urged Somali Islamists to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla campaign of suicide and other attacks against Ethiopian forces in the country.

Speaking to Reuters after the meeting, Frazer said she was unfazed by the latest recording.

”I am not at all concerned. I’m concerned about creating a government that is legitimate, that’s broadly representative, and I think that will take care of any threat from terrorism,” she said.

‘They just ran’

Washington says the top leaders of the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) — who are being pursued by Ethiopian and Somali government troops — are controlled by al-Qaeda, a charge the Islamists have denied.

”As far as chasing down the terrorists goes, I think they are cornered and we will see what happens,” Frazer said.

”I think a lot of bold statements were made by extremists in the courts, that they were going to kill Somalis, that they were going to stand and fight. … And they just ran.”

She said she emphasised to Yusuf the critical importance of not letting warlords rise to power again in Mogadishu, where their militias were manning checkpoints just hours after the Islamists fled the city last week.

Frazer also held a private meeting with Somali Parliamentary Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, whose support for the SICC has put him at odds with Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi.

He has already been replaced with an acting speaker and Somali MPs say Gedi is planning to oust him when Parliament meets in coming days.

”We want reconciliation and that means reconciliation with everybody,” a US diplomat said on condition of anonymity, explaining why Frazer met Adan.

Yusuf had earlier told the group there was a rare opportunity for a real political breakthrough in Somalia, which has been mired in chaos and poverty since the overthrow of a dictator in 1991.

He called for the speedy deployment of the peacekeeping force, which was approved by the UN Security Council before the war, and for funds for aid work and his government. — Reuters