SOMALIA - Feb 23 - Somalia On Brink Awaiting Peace Troops.

Somali government and Ethiopian forces are hoping to stamp out a nascent insurgency in Mogadishu before the arrival of African Union peacekeepers, amid concern that the opportunity to stabilise Somalia is rapidly narrowing. Uganda is due to provide the first 1,500 of 4,000 troops pledged by African countries towards a planned stabilisation force. Before they arrive, however, officials and diplomats said a new Somali "rapid response unit", backed by Ethiopian firepower, would lead an offensive against Islamist and clan militiamen involved in attacks on the Ethiopian-backed transitional federal government (TFG). Ethiopia helped oust a coalition of Islamists that controlled much of southern Somalia last year. The Islamists had brought some law and order to parts of Somalia that had descended into chaos after the 1991 overthrow of the dictator Siad Barre, but their presence stoked Ethiopian and US fears that Somalia was becoming a new front for international jihadists. Using tanks and fighter jets, the Ethiopians helped install in their place the weak transitional government that emerged from peace talks in Kenya in 2004. The Islamists' removal has refocused attention on a country whose instability had otherwise gone unchecked since UN peacekeepers retreated in the mid- 1990s. But doubts over how effective African peacekeepers will be have risen with recent violence. Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian PM, had pledged to complete the withdrawal of his forces - bitterly resented by many Somalis - by now. One of his advisers, Bereket Simon, said yesterday that the situation was "complex" and there had been "some adjustments". But he claimed suggestions events were unravelling in Somalia were "overblown". Hundreds of Somalis have been fleeing Mogadishu in recent days amid apparently growing resistance to the TFG. "There's a strong feeling that they have got to crack down rapidly and that this is the right moment to do it before the AU deployment", another official in Addis Ababa said. Abdullahi Yusuf, president of the TFG, said in London on Feb 22 that there could be "no military solution" in Somalia. He would soon be convening a "national reconciliation congress" aimed at reconciling the country's warring clans. But analysts and diplomats believe the former warlord's real inclination is to try to subdue resistance by force. "Under these circumstances the African Union troops are going to be seen as partisan, and as supporting the TFG", said one.