Leaders from diverse groups in Somalia launched a 10-day conference in Eritrea Thursday to discuss how to end the chaos in Somalia and force Ethiopian troops to pull out. Nick Wadhams has more from our East Africa bureau in Nairobi.

The conference in Eritrea's capital, Asmara, opened with an immediate demand that Ethiopia withdraw its troops from Somalia, which they invaded in December.

Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, (2006 file photo) Organizers said 450 delegates attended the first day, including Sheikh Hassan Aweys, the leader of the Islamic Courts Union.

The group had taken control of much of Somalia before Ethiopia, backed by the U.S. government, ousted its forces in a quick campaign. In the months since, the Ethiopian forces and soldiers with Somalia's transitional government have been unable to bring peace to the capital.

The organizers say they want to create a political group that will bring peace to Somalia. The country last saw stability more than 15 years ago, before dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was ousted in a coup.

"We are expecting to bring up to the end of the conference a program that not only deals with the Ethiopian invasion, but also a program that brings solution to the everlasting civil war that has been occurring in our country for the last 15 years," said Mahad Sheikh, one of the organizers of the meeting. "So we are expecting success and to bring change to Somalia."

The meeting saw strong criticism directed at the United States, Ethiopia's most important ally. Aweys warned that Somalia's neighbors risk destabilization because of its conflict, and called the U.S. policy toward Somalia strangely confrontational.

Aweys asked that the United States play a more positive role in the conflict. Aweys and several other members of the Islamic Courts Union are suspected of links to al-Qaida.

Last week, another conference was held in Mogadishu, sponsored by the transitional government and international groups. Islamists refused to attend that meeting, saying Ethiopian troops must withdraw first.

ASMARA (AFP) — Somali opposition figures, including top Islamist leaders, opened a 10-day congress in Eritrea on Thursday with a call for a swift withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from their war-torn country.

Some 400 delegates gathered in the Eritrean capital for the meeting, which came exactly a week after the close of a clan reconciliation conference sponsored by the interim government and the international community in Mogadishu.

Sheikh Hassan Aweys, the overall leader of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) that briefly controlled large swathes of Somalia before being ousted earlier this year by Ethiopian-backed government forces, was present at the gathering.

Aweys, who was making a rare appearance after months in hiding, did not speak but another of the Islamist movement's top leaders addressed the gathering to press his demand for a rapid Ethiopian withdrawal.

"We hold this conference to establish a political organisation that liberates the country and ends the violence and chaotic situation," Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said.

"We call upon Ethiopia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Somalia and stop its imperialistic adventure on our territory," the senior ICU leader added.

He warned that a prolonged conflict in Somalia would eventually spill over into neighbouring countries and risk setting the whole Horn of Africa region ablaze.

"We remind her (Ethiopia) that the longer the conflict goes on, the higher the risk it will engulf the whole region."

"The United States' foreign policy towards Somalia has been strangely confrontational. We call upon the United States to play a more positive role in the Somali conflict," Sheikh Sharif went on.

Sheikh Aweys and other members of the Islamic Courts Union are wanted by the United States over suspected links with the Al-Qaeda network.

Washington backed Ethiopia's military operations in Somalia and toughened its stance against Addis Ababa's arch-foe and neighbour Eritrea, accusing it of arming Islamists in Somalia and elsewhere in the region.

The Islamist movement boycotted the Mogadishu conference, arguing that any peace efforts should take place only after an Ethiopian withdrawal.

Observers have expressed fears that the two back-to-back conferences would achieve little more than a consolidation of each of Somalia's feuding camps.

But former deputy prime minister Hussein Aideed said the opposition also had some soul-searching to do and should seek to adopt constructive measures towards peace.

"This meeting ... is not a meeting of Somali angels," Aideed said in his own opening speech.

"If we are to be honest to ourselves... we have all directly or indirectly been the cause of the ongoing insecurity in Mogadishu and other parts of Somalia. No one here from among the delegates can claim total innocence."

"I hope the meeting will not produce another outfit that becomes another rubber stamp (for) someone's... selfish power interests," he added.

Diaspora representatives from North America and ten European countries were also present.

In three years of existence, Somalia's Western-backed transitional government has failed to restore stability.

It blames the Islamic Courts Union and allied clan leaders for the near-daily guerrilla-style attacks which have plagued Mogadishu in recent months.

In the latest violence to rock the seaside capital, three more civilians fell victim Thursday to the fighting between government forces and insurgents.

Eyewitness Ali Mohammed Anwar told AFP an elderly man and a woman were killed when a police patrol came under grenade attack near the capital's Salama mosque.

"I saw one of the policemen open fire, killing an old man holding a bag in his hand," he said. "The woman was hit by shrapnel from the grenade blast and was then run over by a bus as she lay on the ground."

Another civilian was killed by Somali security forces in Mogadishu's Holgawad neighbourhood as he tried to cross a heavily guarded street late at night.

Somali security forces have launched a wide crackdown aimed at flushing out insurgents from pockets in the capital that still escape government control.

Since the ouster of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia has had no central authority and defied at least a dozen initiatives aimed at ending bloody tribal feuds and restoring stability