Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government is fighting an Islamist
insurgency and has been hemmed into a few streets of the capital
Mogadishu.
An African Union (AU) peacekeeping force of 5,000, provided by
Burundi and Uganda, is struggling to hold back the rebels. The AU has
repeatedly asked for U.N. peacekeepers to bolster its efforts but has
only been given funding.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon attended the AU's annual summit
in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Sunday and again failed to
pledge peacekeepers.
"In Somalia, recent events have tragically shown that the conflict has a direct bearing on global security," Ban told about 30 African leaders.
Later at a news briefing, Ban said the United Nations was still
considering "whether conditions are right for a peacekeeping
operation."
Violence in Somalia has killed 21,000 civilians since the start of
2007 and uprooted 1.5 million people, a contributing cause of one of
the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.
PIRACY
Heavily armed pirates from the lawless Horn of Africa nation are
terrorizing shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and strategic Gulf of
Aden, which links Europe to Asia.
Ramtane Lamamra, AU Commissioner for Peace and Security said Somalia
was now as big a threat to global security as Afghanistan and should
not be ignored.
"The international terrorism is the same and there is the link to
the same mother organization, al Qaeda," Lamamra said. "And there is
also piracy."
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told delegates
he admired the work of the AU in Somalia but that it was not
"sufficient."
"If we do not support the transitional government more, Somalia
could become a place that could destroy humanity," Zapatero said in
Spanish.
"The proper response is a strong response from the international community, led by the U.N. Somalia is suffering."
Al Qaeda's Yemen-based branch became a global security priority
after it said it was behind a failed December 25 attack on a U.S.
airliner, and concerns have been raised about its ties to Somalia's al
Shabaab militants.
The West has said it is concerned Somalia could turn into an al
Qaeda training camp and launch pad for international attacks, a role
played by Afghanistan in the run-up to the September 11 attacks on the
United States in 2001.
Delegates will discuss Somalia alongside the conflict in Sudan and
Africa's four coups this year at the three-day summit that ends on
Tuesday.
(Additional reporting by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
