UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – A senior UN official pressed Wednesday for deploying a “credible security force” to help the wobbly Somali government contain hardline Islamist opponents seeking to topple it.

“The (Somali) government must be backed by a credible security force that can help it negotiate from a position of strength and contain hardline elements bent on undermining it,” UN Under Secretary General for political affairs Lynn Pascoe told the UN Security Council.

He recalled that UN chief Ban Ki-moon last month outlined a cautious, three-phased plan to deal with Somalia’s security challenge.

The blueprint involves first bolstering the current African Union mission in Somalia (AMISOM), then establishing a UN “light footprint” to supervise humanitarian and development projects and culminating in the deployment of a 22,500-strong UN peacekeeping force backed by naval assets.

“Success in these efforts will give peace a chance to take root, as well as create the conditions for a dramatic improvement in the delivery of humanitarian assistance and early recovery and development activities,” Pascoe said.

And stressing that Somalia’s “nascent and yet fragile peace process must be protected,” UN Under Secretary General for field support Susana Malcorra urged the Council to help the African Union bring AMISOM to its full mandated strength of 8,000. She welcomed a pledge by Sierra Leone this week to contribute a full troop battalion to that force.

Several countries, including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Uruguay, have also tentatively offered to contribute troops or naval and air assets to the proposed UN peacekeeping force, UN peacekeeping supremo Alain Le Roy said.

Meanwhile Somalia’s foreign minister Mohamed Abdulahi Omaar implored Somalia’s hardline Islamist opposition to stop fighting and start talking.

“Stop the bloodshed. Let us talk,” he said in his address to the UN Security Council.

Stressing that his government has “sought every opportunity to engage” the opposition, the minister said: “We will do whatever needs to be done and we ask for your assistance.”

Also Wednesday, UN special envoy for Somalia Ahmedou Ould Abdallah blamed Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys for the recent fighting in Mogadishu and accused him of seeking to topple the country’s government.

“Aweys came to take power and topple a legitimate regime,” told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting on Somalia at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa.

Clashes that started last week between forces loyal to the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and radical forces including members of the Shebab group have left some 100 people dead.

Aweys and Sharif were two of the Islamist leaders who took over most of Somalia in 2006 before being ousted by an Ethiopian invasion in support of the TFG.

Sharif eventually joined the UN-sponsored reconciliation process based in Djibouti and was elected Somalia’s president in January, days after Ethiopia completed its military pullout.

Somalia has lacked an effective central government since plunging into civil war with the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre.

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