Addis Ababa — Somalia's Islamist movement has invited the United States to send an official delegation to Mogadishu amid growing fears of all-out conflict with thegovernmentof Ethiopia, according to Aiga Forum website.

The website which attributed its sources as reliable stated that as tension soared as of last Thursday afterEthiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi announcedhis country's readiness to defend itself and the internationally backed Somali administration, the Islamists urged US officials to visit Mogadishu. "We are inviting the United States to send a delegation to see what is happening in Somalia," Abdurahim Muddey, Spokesman for the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS) said.

"The US delegation will be received by our Foreign Relations Chief, Ibrahim Hassan Addow, who is himself an American citizen. Islamists would like to tell the United States in person of its opposition to a US-proposed UN Security Council resolution that would partially lift a 1992 arms embargo on Somalia and authorize regional peacekeepers," the sources quoted Muddey as saying. The lifting of the UN weapons embargo which is being spearheaded by US is a serious security risk, the Spokesman added.

There was no immediate reaction to the invitation from the US embassy in neighbouring Kenya which handles Washington's Somalia portfolio. But a positive response was unlikely as the United States accuses some Islamists of ties with al-Qaida and harbouring suspects in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the sources indicated. Washington ran a covert operation to support Somali warlords fighting the Islamists for control of Mogadishu, which collapsed in June, prompting US fears of a Taliban-style takeover.