Somali Islamists want peace talks postponed

KHARTOUM, Nov 1 (Reuters) Somali Islamists called for talks with the interim government to be postponed today and an international fact-finding mission sent to Somalia to help resolve ''fundamental issues'' between the rival sides.

A third round of Arab League-sponsored discussions seen as the best way to avert war in the chaotic Horn of Africa nation had been due to start on Monday in Sudan's capital Khartoum.

But two days on the two sides had yet to meet face-to-face, mainly due to an Islamist demand that Ethiopian troops they say are in Somalia to prop up the fragile government leave.

''There are fundamental issues that need to be analysed and sorted. ... We feel the meeting needs to be postponed,'' said Ibrahim Hussein Adow, head of the Islamist delegation.

''We request our colleagues to temporarily suspend the talks ... because Ethiopia has declared war and invaded Somalia.'' Diplomats said they were due to meet the government team which would issue a statement later.

Reached by telephone in the government's sole outpost Baidoa, Information Minister Ali Jama Jangali rejected the Islamists' proposal as ''time-wasting''.

''We will not allow such time-wasting. They are buying time to seize more towns. This is very unfortunate. Nobody can take Somalia at the barrel of a gun,'' he told Reuters. ''The fact-finding mission they're talking about will not be allowed.'' Somalia's interim government and Mogadishu-based Islamists are vying for control of the nation, sunken in anarchy since the 1991 toppling of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

The Islamists sprang from a union of Islamic sharia courts and came to prominence after walloping US-backed warlords in Mogadishu in June.

The government of President Abdullahi Yusuf -- a former warlord and colonel in the Somali army whom diplomats say may favour a military solution -- insists it has the international recognition and legal right to rule the country of 10 million.

But its power on the ground pales to the Islamists, whose disciplined fighters have taken much of south and central Somalia and imposed strict sharia law.

Security experts believe Addis Ababa has sent about 5,000 soldiers to help Somalia's interim government. The Ethiopian government insists it has only several hundred armed military trainers in Somalia.

Talking to reporters in his room at a luxury Khartoum hotel, Adow called for an international fact-finding mission to visit Somalia and verify the status of Ethiopian forces.

''We are in a war situation and Ethiopia has initiated this,'' he said. ''We want the world to take a stand against Ethiopia. We know it can't take Ethiopia out of Somalia, but we want a clear position from the international community.'' Diplomats from the Arab League, Europe, the United Nations and the east African regional body IGAD have met the two sides separately but made little or no headway.

''This is going nowhere,'' one expert on Somalia said before the Islamists requested a postponement. ''I would say it's an 80:20 chance of conflict now.'' Analysts say a war between the militarily superior Islamists and the interim government could draw in Ethiopia and its archrival Eritrea, inflaming long-smouldering grudges in the Horn of Africa.

Islamist troops on the frontline 10 km (6 miles) from joint Ethiopian-Somali government forces protecting the shaky administration's base in Baidoa said this week they expect to fight as soon as the talks in Khartoum end.

REUTERS PDM RK2305