Only 4,000 out of the required 8,000 peacekeeping force in Somalia have been secured.

The awaited Somali peacekeeping plan has not yielded desired fruits. African Union leaders who met at a two-day summit in Ethiopia this week failed to secure full numbers for the planned 8,000 peacekeepers required to restore peace and security in that country. So far, only 4,000 troops had been secured despite pledges made by several nations.

The lack of required troops may frustrate Somali's President Abdullahi Yusuf's plans made public on Tuesday to call a broad conference in which clans and religious leaders would take part, so that the EU funding for the African peacekeeping mission to Somalia should be released.

Correspondent reports say at the start of the meeting in Addis Adaba, 4,000 troops were committed by Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and Malawi. The new AU chairman John Kufuor who is also president of Ghana, said there had been no increase in that number, but he hoped other countries would come forward. "We appeal to member states to contribute and we are still expecting them to answer," he said, adding that the deployment would "commence as soon as possible".

Reports from Somalia say there is intense unrest in the capital. Unidentified gunmen fired mortars on a military base in the north-east of Mogadishu, where Ethiopian troops are based, and five heavy explosions were heard in the capital overnight. But no group has claimed it carried out the attacks, though government officials have accused members of the Union of Islamic Court's militia of masterminding the violence.

According to an update issued last Friday by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), "an estimated 1,000 people left Mogadishu in January 2007 due to fear of conflict and instability".

The agency said negotiations with Kenyan authorities to allow trucks carrying humanitarian supplies into Somalia are continuing.