Nations deny arming rival Somali factions

NAIROBI, Nov 14 (Reuters) Several nations today denied charges in a UN-commissioned report that they are pouring weaponry into Somalia in violation of the world's most-ignored weapons ban.

An advance copy of the report to the United Nations Security Council, obtained by Reuters, paints a detailed picture of the foreign interests behind Somalia's interim government or its powerful Islamist rivals.

It says at least seven Muslim and Red Sea nations are providing arms and military supplies to the Islamists, who aim to rule the anarchic nation through sharia law, and three states are arming the largely impotent Somali government.

Many fear the build-up will spark a war inflaming the Horn of Africa and spreading south into Kenya and beyond.

The primary violators of the widely ignored 1992 arms ban since June, the report says, are Somali neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea, who back the government and Islamists respectively.

Eritrea was involved in at least 28 arms and gear shipments, sent in more than 2,000 troops and trained Islamist fighters, the report says.

''We know these statements are coming from Washington. The UN is just acting undercover. This is a pure act of defamation,'' said Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu.

Eritrea accuses the United Nations of acting as an agent of the United States to create a ''pretext'' for Ethiopia to invade.

Djibouti, Libya, Egypt and ''certain West Asia countries'' have used Eritrea to funnel their own aid to the Islamists, the report says. Syria and Iran are also named as Islamist backers.

Uganda, accused of sending anti-aircraft gun parts, supplies and what security experts estimate at about 100 soldiers, denied violating the ban.

''That's absolutely false. We are aware of the UN embargo on Somalia and we are respecting it. That's why we haven't even deployed peacekeeping troops in Somalia,'' Ugandan Minister of State for Defence Ruth Nankabirwa told Reuters.

NO COMMENT Ethiopia's foreign ministry had no comment on the report. Addis Ababa says it sent several hundred military advisers, but the report says at least 3,300 troops have come in since June with hundreds of vehicles and weapons caches.

That would put the Ethiopian presence between 5,000 and 10,000, security experts have told Reuters.

The 80-page report, written by four experts from the United States, Kenya, Belgium and Colombia and covering the period since June, is full of the stuff of thriller novels: * It says the Islamists paid 60,000 dollar to two men who formerly worked for a warlord defeated in Mogadishu to buy arms from Ethiopia under the pretext they would be given to pro-government warlord Mohamed Dheere.

Instead, they siphoned off 12 metric tonnes of ammunition which was believed to have gone to the Islamists.

* It says Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi signed a contract with an airline allowing it the exclusive right to transport weapons from Ethiopia to the government's base in Baidoa. Gedi could not be reached for comment.

* In two instances in October, an aircraft using a false registration number flew from Massawa, Eritrea, to Mogadishu carrying either military supplies or Islamist fighters returning from training in an unidentified state.

* A dhow carrying weapons to the Islamists was hijacked by pirates, and on August 12, the Islamists stormed it in the port of Haradheere. The Islamists said nothing about the ship, but said they seized the port to stop rampant piracy along the coast.

REUTERS SY RAI2208