Arab League makes little headway on Somalia talks

By Abdi Sheikh

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - The Arab League is trying to broker negotiations between Somalia's fragile U.N.-backed government and Islamist insurgents, but it said on Saturday that rebel hardliners did not want to talk.

Western security agencies say the drought-ravaged nation has become a safe haven for militants, including foreign jihadists, who are using it to plot attacks across the region and beyond.

Ibrahim al-Shuwaymi, the Arab League's ambassador in Somalia, said it had been trying to broker discussions between the government and the insurgents behind the scenes since the League opened an office in the capital Mogadishu in July 2008.

"Somalia's politics are very complicated, but we shall never lose hope of reconciling them," he told Reuters in an interview.

"I meet the government and Islamists officials in an effort to bring peace. But the problem comes from the Hizbul Islam and al Shabaab (rebel) groups, which do not want dialogue."

Al Shabaab, which Washington says is al Qaeda's proxy in Somalia, has vowed to strike Burundi and Uganda's capitals in revenge for Thursday's rocket attacks by peacekeepers from those countries that killed 30 people in Mogadishu.

Burundi and Uganda both have about 2,600 peacekeepers in the Somali capital for the African Union's AMISOM force.

Fighting in failed Horn of Africa state has killed 19,000 Somalis since the start of 2007 and uprooted 1.5 million, triggering one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.