UN moves to curb Somali war

Addis Ababa - The United Nations moved on Tuesday to prevent unrest in lawless Somalia from spreading to the greater Horn of Africa as a UN envoy opened a tour of the region to urge restraint among neighbouring states.
With tensions soaring between Somalia's weak, internationally backed government and its powerful, rapidly expanding Islamist movement, the UN special representative for Somalia Francois Fall began his seven-nation trip here.
Amid rising concerns Somalia may have already become a proxy battleground for arch-foes Ethiopia and Eritrea, Fall met in Addis Ababa with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and officials of the African Union (AU).
He was set to travel on to the Eritrean capital of Asmara on Wednesday before heading to Djibouti, Yemen, Sudan, Egypt and Uganda, all of which are players or have a stake in Somalia.
"I decided to make a regional fact-finding tour to assess the particularly tenuous situation in Somalia and the region," said Fall.
"One of the points of my mission is to ease tensions in the region because the Somali crisis has regional repercussions."
Islamists seized Mogadishu from warlords
Of particular concern to many are the opposite sides taken by Ethiopia, which is supporting the Somali government and is accused of sending troops to protect it, and Eritrea, which is accused of giving arms to the Islamists.
Since the Islamists seized Mogadishu from warlords in June and took control of much of southern Somalia, mainly Christian Ethiopia has warily watched the rise of what it claims are "jihadists" on its southeastern border.
Addis Ababa has vowed to defend the Somali government, based in the central town of Baidoa, from any Islamist attack, but has denied repeated eyewitness accounts of uniformed Ethiopian troops already in Somalia.
At the same time, UN experts monitoring a much-violated 1992 arms embargo on Somalia have reported that Asmara is actively supporting the Islamists with large shipments of weapons and ammunition.
The two countries, still at deep odds about the unimplemented final settlement to their bloody 1998-2000 border war, are also on opposite sides over the proposed deployment of east African peacekeepers to Somalia.
Both are members of the regional body that is to provide those troops at the request of the Somali government.
Uganda pledges troops to mission
But Ethiopia firmly supports the plan, while Eritrea is opposed, as are the Islamists who have vowed to fight them.
Fall said he would raise that issue and hoped for a continuation of Arab League peace talks between the Somali government and the Islamists throughout his trip to prepare for a November briefing to the UN security council.
Djibouti has sided with Eritrea in the peacekeeper debate, while Uganda agrees with Ethiopia and has pledged troops to the mission, Yemen has close ties with Somali leaders, and Sudan is host of the Arab League talks.
The headquarters of the Arab League are in Egypt.
Somalia has been without a functioning central government since the ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
The current, nearly two-year-old administration is the latest in more than a dozen internationally backed attempts to restore stability, but has been wracked by infighting and is increasingly challenged by the Islamists.