Council backs stronger U.N. presence in Somalia

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on Thursday that opens the door to a stronger U.N. presence in Somalia and possible deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in the lawless Horn of Africa country.

Somalia's transitional government is expected to welcome the resolution, even though the text contains no hard promises that the council will eventually deploy U.N. peacekeepers in Somalia as the government has repeatedly requested.

While all 15 council members agree the situation is dire, most have been reluctant to send U.N. peacekeepers to Somalia, where warlords, Islamist insurgents and Ethiopian-backed Somali government forces clash almost daily.

Talk of outside intervention is still colored by memories of a battle in 1993 in which 18 U.S. troops and hundreds of Somali militiamen died. The incident inspired a book and a Hollywood movie -- "Black Hawk Down" -- and marked the beginning of the end for a combined U.S.-U.N. peacekeeping force.

In the resolution adopted on Thursday, the Security Council explicitly backed a recent report by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on his preparations for a U.N. force that would replace African Union peacekeepers, known as AMISOM.

It also calls for Ban "to continue his contingency planning for the possible deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Somalia to succeed AMISOM."

The resolution includes language proposed by South Africa, a strong advocate of sending U.N. troops to Somalia, in which the council explicitly says it will "consider ... a peacekeeping operation to take over from AMISOM" if conditions are right.

South Africa's U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo told reporters afterward he was very pleased the council said for the first time it would think about sending troops to Somalia if conditions on the ground are deemed acceptable.