This news updete by www.zeenews.com









Nairobi, : Somalia is at a dangerous crossroads after nearly two decades of lawlessness, and urgently needs international help to stem an Islamic insurgency and rampant piracy off the coast, the Prime Minister said Tuesday.

Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein spoke days after Ethiopia announced it would withdraw its troops from the country by the end of this month. The pullout will leave the Somali government vulnerable to Islamic insurgents who already control towns just a few kilometers from the capital, Mogadishu, and move freely inside the city.

"The international community should play their role now, and not tomorrow, to avoid any power vacuum," Hussein told agencies in an interview from the patio of a hotel in Nairobi, Kenya.

Civilians have taken the brunt of the violence surrounding the insurgency, with thousands killed or maimed by mortar shells, machine-gun crossfire and grenades. The United Nations says there are around 300,000 acutely malnourished children in Somalia, but attacks and kidnappings of aid workers and foreigners have shut down many aid projects.

Somalia has urged the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force, which the UN Security Council said was possible if the country can improve its security situation.

The United States worries that Somalia could be a terrorist breeding ground, particularly since Osama bin Laden declared his support for the Islamists. It accuses a faction known as al-Shabab - "The Youth" - of harbouring the al-Qaida-linked terrorists who allegedly blew up the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

Hussein said al-Shabab was recruiting from Somalia's disaffected youth, and that establishing peace might require reaching out to those youths with opportunities.





News Via