The AU hopes that other countries would send their soldiers to make up the AU planned force have started to fade away as insurgents have recently been targeting the peacekeepers.

Ethiopian soldiers have been in Somalia since December 2006 supporting the interim government but Islamist insurgents have been waging running battles against the government and its ally, making it difficult to institute any semblance of order in the country.

Prime Minister Meles told the legislators that it is not fair to abandon the AU and international community as both have expressed the need for the Ethiopian soldiers to remain in Somalia until such time as the AU is ready to deploy its full force of peace keepers.

“We are constantly reviewing the situation on the ground and we have explained to the international community that the interim government is not yet ready to take responsibility for peace and reconciliation,” he said.

A section of the insurgents have set the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Somalia as a condition for reaching a peace accord with the government. However observers say that the presence of mostly Christian troops from Ethiopia in Muslim Somalia is regretted by the Islamist insurgents. The interim government seems to have little choice but to keep the Ethiopian troops in the absence of a fully-fledged U.N. peace force. It is also not known when the AU will deploy all the troops required in the mission.

And as Ethiopia contemplates its position in Somalia, heavy fighting erupted on Thursday between insurgents and Ethiopian troops during which at least two soldiers and three civilians were killed.

The fighting concentrated on the road to the Mogadishu airport and the strategic K-4 junction where the AU peace keepers are based.

Somali has never had a functioning government since 1991 and the civil strife has displaced an estimated 1.1 million people only during this year. According to UN and other humanitarian agencies more than three million people need food aid.