U.S. to convene international meeting on Somalia next week

The United States will convene the first meeting of a "Somalia Contact Group" next week in New York to discuss strategy on Somalia, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Friday.

Officials from the United Nations, European and African countries and other international organizations will attend the meeting to coordinate support for the Somalia transitional federal institutions, McCormack said.

"There are a number of different countries that have programs related to Somalia," McCormack said. "So this is an opportunity for them to talk about what they're doing individually, how you might coordinate ... how you might look at doing things jointly."

McCormack made the remarks days after an Islamic militia seized the capital Mogadishu and ousted warlords widely believed to have been supported by the United States.

U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday voiced concern that Somalia could become as Afghanistan was under the Taliban.

"There's instability in Somalia," Bush said. "The first concern, of course, is to make sure that Somalia does not become an al- Qaida safe haven _ it doesn't become a place from which terrorists can plot and plan."

It was reported that the Islamist militia won control of Mogadishu on Monday after weeks of fighting that left more than 330 people dead, and advanced on Friday toward the secular warlords in other areas.

Somalia has been without a central government since 1991, when warlords first occupied the capital. U.S. forces intervened in 1992 to protect famine aid and withdrew in 1994 after a Mogadishu street battle in which 18 American service members were killed.

Source: Xinhua