UGANDA is sending 1,000 troops to Somalia to help the victorious government pacify the Horn of Africa nation after a two-week war to oust Islamic militants.

Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa told BBC yesterday that Uganda had offered a battalion, while the Somali government says Nigeria may also give troops to an African peacekeeping mission already endorsed by the United Nations before the war.

A triumphant Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, whose intervention turned the war against the Islamists, said his forces would only remain in Somalia "for a few weeks" while the interim government pacifies the chaotic nation.

"It is up to the international community to deploy a peacekeeping force in Somali without delay to avoid a vacuum and the resurgence of extremists and terrorists," he added[/quote