African Union agrees peace mission for Somalia

BANJUL - Africa's leaders have agreed to send troops to Somalia to support regional efforts at calming the chaotic east African state.

A summit of the 53-member African Union (AU) called for dialogue between Somalia's weak interim government and powerful Islamic courts, which wrested control of the war-scarred capital Mogadishu from US-backed warlords early last month.

A resolution adopted unanimously at the meeting said an AU peace and stability mission would deploy in Somalia in the wake of peacekeepers from the east African regional body IGAD (the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development), delegates said.

"We have decided that the African Union, together with regional groups like IGAD, should take the situation in Somalia in hand," Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso, the current chairman of the pan-African body, told a news conference.

"The African Union will give all its support to the interim government, and we invite the international community to join us in supporting them, while favouring internal dialogue in Somalia," Sassou Nguesso said.

Somalia's interim government supports the deployment of peacekeepers to the Horn of Africa country, which descended into lawlessness in 1991 when warlords ousted military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

But the Council of Islamic Courts strongly opposes foreign intervention - although it distanced itself on Sunday from recent statements by Osama bin Laden that any deployment of foreign troops would be part of a crusade to crush Islamic rule.

The AU says it will not deal directly with the Islamists, who control Mogadishu and a large swathe of central-southern Somalia.

Somalian Foreign Minister Abdullahi Sheekh Ismail said the resolution unanimously adopted by the heads of state envisaged the prompt deployment of an AU mission, once the IGAD mission was in place.

"It was described as 'as urgent as possible', in the shortest possible time," he said.

The minister, in an apparent change of position from earlier this week, said the interim government was prepared to negotiate with the Islamists.

"We are committed to the date which has been fixed for talks, that is July 15," he said.

- REUTERS