"We would prefer that the US work with the transitional government and not with criminals," Gedi said.

Additional Reporting By Ahmad Maher, IOL Staff

CAIRO, May 17, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – The interim Somali government is accusing the United States of fanning the flames of civil war in the African country by backing warlords, not only financially but also militarily.

"Clearly we have a common objective to stabilize Somalia, but the US is using the wrong channels," Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi told the Washington Post on Wednesday, May 17.

"We would prefer that the US work with the transitional government and not with criminals," he maintained.

"This is a dangerous game."

Mogadishu was this week the scene of deadly battles between gunmen allied to Islamic courts and militia loyal to the US-backed warlord Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism(ARPCT).

The latest clashes, which claimed the lives of at left 150 people and left hundreds more wounded, were some of the most violent in Mogadishu since the end of the American intervention in 1994.

Somalia, a nation of 10 million people in the Horn of Africa, has been without a functioning central authority since the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 plunged it into anarchy.

Since then warlords have been battling for control of a patchwork of fiefdoms.

More than a dozen attempts to restore stability have failed.

The latest, a transitional government set up in 2004 in Kenya and now based in the town of Baidoa west of Mogadishu, has been undermined by infighting.

US Funding

Somali officials are blaming the US for the latest violence in their lawless capital by bankrolling the warlords.

"The US government funded the warlords in the recent battle in Mogadishu, there is no doubt about that," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari told journalists by telephone from Baidoa.

"This cooperation . . . only fuels further civil war."

US troops withdrew from Somalia in 1994 following a disastrous military intervention.

American analysts of Africa policy say Washington has returned to the African country, secretly supporting the warlords, according to the Washington Post.

While the US has not explicitly confirmed its support for the alliance, US officials have said ARPCT has received US money and is one of several groups Washington is working with to contain the alleged threat Al-Qaeda.

Military

Somali Health Minister Abdel Aziz Sheikh Yussef even accused the US of giving military support for the warlords.

"The United States is behind (the latest violence) through its financial and military support of warlords and its interference in the country's internal affairs," he told reporters on Tuesday, May 16, at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo.

A number of Somalis spotted on Saturday, May 13, what they described as a US drone carrying out hourly missions over Mogadishu.

IslamOnline.net has over the past four days been trying to reach US administration officials for comment.

Officials contacted in the State Department declined comment, saying only the Pentagon can comment on military-related issue.

An attempt to reach a Pentagon spokesman on Tuesday was unfruitful and a message left on his answer machine requesting comment on the drone report was not responded to until Wednesday midday Cairo local time.

The Somali health minister also refuted Tuesday Washington's claims of "creeping Talibanization" in Somalia.

"The people of Somalia deal with officials of the Islamic courts because they are appointed by tribal chiefs and have a good reputation compared with the warlords, contrary to what the United States claims."