NAIROBI — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went into talks Thursday with the embattled president of Somalia, a country experts fear is poised to turn into a global terrorist haven.

The meeting in Nairobi was the highest-level US meeting yet with Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed who the United States believes is the best hope of stabilising a nation torn by conflict for nearly two decades.

“The legitimacy of his election is something we want to recognise and (we want to) support him as he tries to assert governance over parts of Somalia that have been riven with conflict since 1992,” Clinton told a public forum at the University of Nairobi.

“Our goal is to try and help create conditions of stability and the African Union has military forces in Somalia. They’re trying to create areas of conflict-free zones,” she said.

“We want to be supportive but again this is an African-led mission and we applaud that and we want to support the African intervention into Somalia.”

In a veiled reference to Eritrea, Clinton said: “We need to get some of the neighbours to quit funding the terrorist organisation Al Shebab”.

The Al Qaeda-inspired Shebab movement, along with other groups, launched a deadly military offensive three months ago in Mogadishu and central Somalia in a bid to topple Sharif.

Sharif, ayoung Islamist cleric, was at the forefront of the armed resistance against the 2006 military invasion of Somalia by US allies Ethiopia but has since joined a UN-sponsored reconciliation process and is perceived to be occupying the country’s political middle ground.

Washington and its African allies accuse Eritrea of fomenting the insurgency in Somalia.

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, warned last week that Eritrea had a “very short window” to change course or face the wrath of the US, including possible sanctions.

President Barack Obama’s administration said in June it was shipping urgent supplies of arms and ammunition to Somalia. Johnnie Carson, the top US diplomat for Africa, said Clinton was ready to offer further support to Sharif.

Somalia has long bedevilled US leaders. Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, hastily ended a humanitarian mission shipping food to the country after an intense 1993 battle with a warlord killed nearly two dozen US and coalition troops and hundreds of Somalis.

Clinton started the day by laying flowers at the US embassy in a tribute to the victims of the twin bombings of the Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam embassies that killed 224 people 11 years ago Friday.

Experts fear that Somalia could become a haven for Al Qaeda-affiliated groups if Sharif is not actively strengthened by his international partners.

“If the international community doesn’t fully understand the threat, the end game will be ’96 all over again, the year the Taliban entered Kabul,” one diplomat said.

Later in the day Clinton will fly to South Africa, her second stop on a seven-nation tour of Africa that is her longest trip since becoming the top US diplomat six months ago.

In South Africa, she will also take up another hotspot by seeking African pressure on Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe to institute democratic and economic reforms.

Clinton is also highlighting development issues and women’s rights.

In Nairobi on Wednesday, she told a forum of some 40 nations that the US was committed to supporting Africa but that African nations needed to fight corruption and improve governance.

Clinton was underscoring a message made last month in Ghana by Obama, whose African roots have led to intense interest in his administration across the continent.

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Source: AFP

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