OIC, march 11 (Alaalam) -- The Organization of the Islamic Conference has called for warring parties in Nigeria to iron out differences and put an end to the bloodletting, which has claimed 109 lives.

OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu in a statement condemned the violence between Muslim and Christian communities.

A Nigerian state police chief revised Wednesday the death toll from weekend sectarian massacres from 500 to 109.

He said the earlier death toll in the Nigerian city of Jos provided by government officials was fabricated.

Plateau State police commissioner Ikechukwu Aduba gave a breakdown of the list of people killed.

The state's information commissioner Gregory Yenlong told AFP over 500 people had been killed in an orgy of violence in three predominantly Christian villages near Jos.

The police chief said Yenlong was among a group of senior government, medical and police officials who witnessed the body count was conducted.

Mogadishu, march 10 (Al-Jazeera) -- Ali Mahmoud Rajhi, a spokesman for Somalia's al-Shabab group, has told Al Jazeera that the group is not afraid of United States involvement in the battle against them.

He said that the proposed US collusion with Somali government forces makes al-Shabab even more certain they are on the "right" path.

"This decision will not affect al-Shabab movement. Actually, it makes us more certain that we are on the right path; the path that was chosen for us by God.

"We also become more certain that we have to keep going despite the animosity of the disbelieving nations. The Americans want to scare us. But, we are not afraid," Rajhi said.

"If they come to Somalia, they need to know that those who fought them in 1993 and dragged their bodies in the streets of Mogadishu are still present and ready to drag their dead bodies again," Rajhi said.

Mogadishu battle

The US has long been involved in training Somali government troops.

But now it says it might send troops to help a new offensive which aims to push al- Shabab out of the Somali capital Mogadishu.

Somalia's government would welcome US air support for an expected offensive aimed at retaking control of areas from the al-Shabab rebels, Sharif Ahmed, the Somali president, said on Tuesday.

The New York Times cited an unnamed US official in Washington saying that the offensive could begin in a few weeks. "What you're likely to see is airstrikes and Special Ops moving in, hitting and getting out," the official said.

In recent months, US advisers have helped supervise the training of Somali forces to be deployed in the offensive.

US officials said that this was part of a continuing programme to "build the capacity" of the Somali military, and that there has been no increase in military aid for the coming operations, the paper said.

US military intervention in Somalia in the early 1990s, when it led a major international relief operation, ended in disaster after UN forces were drawn into fighting with local warlords.

During the so-called "Battle of Mogadishu" in October 1993, forces loyal to warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid killed a total of 18 US soldiers on a single day, dragging some of their bodies through the streets of Mogadishu.

Jos, march 10 (AFP) -- Fresh gunfire has sent Christian villagers in Nigeria fleeing as a senior official accused the country's military chiefs of having ignored warnings about last weekend's massacre.

Residents of a mainly Christian settlement near the central city of Jos fled to a nearby police barracks for shelter at the sound of gunfire, said locals.

"We heard gunshots reverberating all over the neighbourhood and I could not wait to know who was firing the shots," Josephine Emmanuel, of Bukka Uku, about four kilometres (three miles) south of Jos, told AFP by phone.

"All people in the neighborhood have fled," she added.

Just hours earlier, members of the Fulani clan and Berom ethnic activists had clashed nearby, a senior police officer told AFP.

"Some Fulani pastoralists attempted to attack a village and Beroms repelled them," said the officer speaking on condition of anonymity.

Earlier Tuesday, Jonah Jang, governor of central Plateau state, said Sunday's carnage, which claimed hundreds of lives of mainly Christian villagers, could have been avoided had there not been security lapses.

He had alerted Nigeria's army commander about reports of movement around the area and had been told that troops would be heading there, Jang told reporters in the capital Abuja.

"Three hours or so later, I was woken by a call that they (armed gangs) have started burning the village and people were being hacked to death.

"I tried to locate the commanders, (but) I couldn’t get any of them on the telephone."

Near the central city of Jos, mass burials have been held for some of the hundreds of victims of the three-hour orgy of violence, as survivors nursed their wounds in hospitals.

Troops meanwhile patrolled the three villages where members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group embarked on their killing spree. But residents of neighbouring villages said they had already received new threats.

Officials have said more than 500 people from the mainly Christian Berom ethnic group were hacked to death with machetes, axes and daggers in three villages of Dogo Nahawa, Ratsat and Zot on Sunday morning.

In a surgical ward of Jos hospital, women nursing deep scalp wounds mourned the loss of their children.

Chindum Yakubu, 30, mother of four, described the screams of her 18-month-old daughter who was hacked to death as the family tried to flee the pre-dawn attacks.

"They removed the baby (from her back) and killed her with machete," Yakubu said.

Thousands have been killed in recent years from strife in and around Jos, which is on the dividing line between the mainly Muslim north and Christian dominated south.

"One moment it's relaxed, then the next moment people are running for their dear life," said hospital administrator Ruth Mutfwang, summing up life in the restive region.

As a group of men huddled in small groups at Dogo Nahawa, one was overheard saying "we will take revenge."

International observers have called on the government to tackle the root causes of the ethnic tensions, which have seen thousands killed here in recent years.

The UN's human rights chief Navi Pillay said, "what is most needed is a concerted effort to tackle the underlying causes of the repeated outbreaks of ethnic and religious violence... namely discrimination, poverty and disputes over land."

Nigeria's senate described the attacks as acts of "terrorism" and crimes against humanity.

But the main opposition Action Congress accused the federal government of "hypocrisy," saying perpetrators of the region's violence in recent years had not been brought to justice.

Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja, meanwhile objected to suggestions that this was a conflict between Christians and Muslims.

"This is a classic conflict between herdsmen and farmers, only the Fulani are all Muslims and the Berom all Christians," he told Vatican Radio.

"The international media are quickly led to report that it is Christians and Muslims who are killing one another; but this is not true, because the killings are not caused by religion but by social, economic, tribal and cultural issues."

Sunday's attacks were only the latest between rival ethnic and religious groups.

Locals said they resulted from a feud first ignited by cattle theft that was fuelled by deadly reprisals

Nairobi, march 10 (AFP) -- Suspected Somali pirates have hijacked a Kenyan-flagged fishing boat with 16 crew which may be used as a "mother ship" to launch more attacks in the Indian Ocean, maritime sources said Tuesday.

Andrew Mwangura, the head of the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme said that the MV Sakoba had a Spanish captain and 15 other crew members from Kenya, Poland, Senegal, Cape Verde and Namibia.

"The vessel was taken hostage in waters off the Kenyan and Seychellois coasts last week", he said.

The European Union's Atalanta anti-piracy naval mission confirmed in a statement that the ship was in the hands of pirates Tuesday and heading towards the Somali pirate lair of Harardhere.

"The Kenyan flagged fishing vessel Sakoba is reported hijacked 400 nautical miles east of Dar es Salam," the statement said.

Atalanta spokesman John Harbour told AFP that the ship's ownership was unclear and voiced fears that the hijacked vessel might be used by the pirates as a floating base from which to launch their skiffs on more victims.

"We don't know who owns the ship. We know that in 2007 it was Spanish owned," Harbour said. "In fact, that ship might have been used by pirates as a mother ship."

Spain's fisheries federation Cepesca said in a statement that the ship's operator was Kenyan while the foreign ministry stressed that "the only connection with Spain is that the captain is Spanish."

Mwangura said the case was suspect since no attempt has apparently been made by the pirates to contact the owners or operators and start negotiations for a ransom payment.

"Communication with the ship has not been established", he said. "It is very strange because in all other pirate attacks, the hijackers make contact with the ship's owners for the sole purpose of negotiating for a ransom."

The UK Maritime Trade Organisation urged seafarers to avoid sailing too close to the Somali coast.

"The fishing vessel is used as a pirate platform and still poses a threat to mariners," it said.

Ecoterra International, a environmental NGO monitoring maritime activity in the region, said the MV Sakoba had a murky track record.

In 2005, the MV Sakoba, then comprising a crew from Kenya and Spain and registered in Ghana, was involved in an incident during which the Kenyan crew members were injured.

Somali pirates, who raked in at least 60 million dollars in ransom money last year, currently hold at least seven ships and close to 150 seamen hostage.

Over the past year, Atalanta and several other multinational naval missions have curbed piracy in the Gulf of Aden -- one of the world's busiest maritime trade routes -- but sea bandits have since ventured further south into less heavily-patrolled areas of the Indian Ocean.

UNITED NATIONS, march 10 (Reuters) - The United Nations is asking rich nations to help raise $59 million to support refugees who have fled clashes in the cobalt-rich Democratic Republic of Congo.

Thousands of Congolese have fled fighting in the northern province of Equateur and taken refuge in neighboring Congo Republic, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, which has assisted refugees from the outset of the crisis, the United Nations said

on Tuesday in a statement.

"But they have very limited resources and a small population, over half of whom subsist on $1.25 per day," said John Holmes, the U.N. humanitarian affairs chief. "Significant support is therefore required from the international community."

The clashes originated in inter-communal disputes over farming and fishing rights, the United Nations said.

The U.N.'s biggest peacekeeping mission is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a former Belgian colony. It has been in the country since 1999 to help the government as it struggles to reestablish control over the vast central African nation.

A 1998-2003 war and the ensuing humanitarian disaster have killed an estimated 5.4 million people in the country.

United Nations said last week it could begin withdrawing troops from Congo as early as June, around the 50th anniversary of the country's independence.

Home to the world's biggest reserves of cobalt -- used in batteries, ceramics and dyes -- the Democratic Republic of Congo has gold, silver and diamond mines. It also has some of the world's largest stores of copper, tin and metals such as tungsten and coltan, a component of many mobile phones.

LOME, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Togo's main opposition party leader Jean-Pierre Fabre says he will not seek justice from the constitutional court in fight against the elections results which he fears rigged.

"We cannot go and tie ourselves up into judicial processes because once we have gone to the constitutional court which is expected to make a ruling, this ruling is going to be against us," the 58-year-old candidate of the United Forces for Change (UFC) said on Tuesday.

Fabre lost to outgoing President Faure Gnassingbe in Thursday's presidential election with 33.94 percent of the votes against 60. 92 percent, according to the provisional results released by the West African country's electoral commission.

"We know what the Togolese constitutional court has been doing for a very long time and we do not want to go and find ourselves in such an impasse," he told a local TV channel in an interview.

Fabre had previously declared himself the winner of the election with a "wide margin." After the publication of the results, he dismissed them as cooked-up figures, calling on the people to rise up and reject them.

On Tuesday, hundreds of UFC members and supporters staged protests in the capital Lome in defiance of a ban by the authorities. They were quickly dispersed by the Presidential Election Security Forces (FOSEP), a special unit of the 6,000- strong deployment to guard against riots, which left hundreds of people dead in the 2005 polls.

UFC vows to continue the protest march until the weekend. "Today, politics will be the order of the day," Fabre declared.

ABUJA, march 10 (Reuters) -- Hundreds of Nigerians gathered in the capital Abuja on Wednesday for a march to the presidency to demand the appearance of ailing leader Umaru Yar'Adua, two weeks after he returned from a Saudi hospital.

The 58-year-old leader has not been seen in public since being flown back after three months of treatment in Jeddah for a heart condition. There have been no announcements on his health but presidency sources say he remains in intensive care.

His return while still too frail to govern raised fears that his inner circle of aides, led by his wife Turai, would fight to maintain their influence over Africa's most populous nation and seek to undermine Acting President Goodluck Jonathan.

A power struggle at the top of the OPEC member nation of 140 million people could bring paralysis in government decision-making, threatening an amnesty programme in the oil-producing Niger Delta and stalling momentum on reforms.

Several hundred people, many wearing T-shirts with "Save Nigeria Group" on the front and "Enough is Enough" on the back, gathered near to a city centre hotel under the watch of police officers lining the avenue.

"We want the invisible president to be revoked. We are tired of a president we can't see, who can't govern. We want to see him," Babatunde Ogala, a politician from the commercial capital Lagos, told the gathering crowd.

"If we can't see him we want someone else who is allowed to govern. Why is a cabal controlling our country," he said.

Officials organising the march said they planned to walk to Aso Rock, the presidential villa, and hand a letter of protest to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, who co-ordinates between the presidency and government ministries.

"Turai, leave Nigeria alone" and "Jonathan get decisive now" were among the banners held up above the crowd.

A police spokesman addressed the protesters, pledging that the security forces were there to protect them and would help them carry their message "in a peaceful manner". He said officers were not carrying tear gas or weapons.

Such political demonstrations are relatively rare in Nigeria, where the vast majority of people get by on $2 a day or less and feel politics is a game played by multi-millionaires whose outcome has little effect on their daily lives.

Similar marches in recent months have passed peacefully.

Should Yar'Adua be formally declared too sick to govern, or resign or die, Jonathan would be sworn in as head of state and complete the unexpired presidential term, which runs to May next year, with a new vice president.

The demonstrators are also demanding electoral reforms to avoid the sort of chaos seen in the 2007 polls which brought Yar'Adua to power, a vote so marred by ballot-stuffing and intimidation that observers said it was not credible

KHARTOUM, March 10 (Xinhua) -- China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA) on Tuesday handed over 110,000 U.S. dollars' worth of medical equipment to Sudan's Al Birr and Al-Tawasul Organization (BTO).

The CFPA donation, including 12 sets of portable ultrasound diagnostic scanners, infant incubators, stainless-steel sterilizer and 500 pieces of solar and hand-winding electric charged torch- radios, was handed over to the BTO at a ceremony held at the Chinese embassy here on Tuesday.

The ceremony was organized by the Chinese embassy in cooperation with Sudanese Ministry of Health and Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs.

CFPA Vice Secretary General Yang Qinghai, addressing the ceremony, said the first batch of the equipment had arrived in Sudan in February and would be distributed among 12 hospitals for women and children through the BTO.

"The CFPA will continue to strengthen the exchange and cooperation with the BTO and make more contribution in hospital- building and community development," he said.

Chinese ambassador to Sudan Li Chengwen, for his part, said both CFPA and BTO were important NGOs devoted to humanitarian and charity work.

"This ceremony paves the way for NGO cooperation between China and Sudan, which will certainly deepen the exchanges and cooperation between the two peoples," he said.

Sudanese Minister of Health Tabitha Boutros Shukaya and Sudanese Commissioner General for Humanitarian Aid Hassabo Mohamed Abdul-Rahman highly appreciated the active and effective cooperation between CFPA and BTO, stressing that, as an important aspect of Sudan-China relations, the friendly exchanges and cooperation between NGOs would enhance the traditional friendship between the two peoples.

Fatima al-Amin, wife of Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha and BTO president, affirmed in the ceremony the importance of the equipment donated by CFPA, saying that the equipment will help people in remote areas that run short of necessary health equipment.

CAIRO march 10 (Reuters) -- Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, the head of Egypt's most prestigious seat of Islamic learning al Azhar, died of a heart attack on Wednesday during a visit to Saudi Arabia, religious officials at al-Azhar said. He was 81.

Abdullah el-Naggar, advisor to the sheikh, told Egypt's Nile News television the death was a surprise, saying that before leaving to Saudi Arabia the sheikh had seemed in "excellent shape and health."

A member of Tantawi's office, Ashraf Hassan, told Reuters that Mohamed Wasel, Tantawi's deputy, was expected to temporarily take over leading the institution until the Egyptian president appointed a new head for the body.

Al Azhar, which runs schools, universities and other educational institutions across Egypt, receives most of its funding from the state.

When he was appointed in 1996, Tantawi was viewed as having relatively liberal views on issues such as women's rights but had been criticised by some for toeing the government's line.

In office, he opposed female circumcision as not an Islamic practice and took a stand against the full veil, or 'niqab', that completely covers the face.

Tantawi issued a religious edict last year barring the niqab in al-Azhar-run all-girl schools.

A Saudi source familiar with the situation said Tantawi died of a heart attack in the Saudi capital on Wednesday.

CAIRO, march 10 (Reuters) -- Egypt wants visitors to discover its Mediterranean coast at a marine reserve being established near the border with Libya, the government said on Tuesday.

"The goal is to protect endangered species ... and encourage ecotourism in the reserve area, putting it on the global ecotourism map," Environment Minister Maged George said.

The 383-sq km (150-square-mile) reserve, mostly in the water in the Gulf of el-Salloum, is Egypt's 28th nature protectorate, but its first on the Mediterranean.

"Declaring this protectorate is a way to confront a host of environmental problems, such as soil degradation and coastal inundation, climate change and loss of biological diversity," George said in a statement, adding that the area was rich in natural resources.

The protectorate contains more than 160 migratory and local bird species, about 30 reptile and amphibian species and 10,000 to 12,000 marine species. Its creation should encourage scientific research on biological diversity in Egypt, he said.

Tourism accounts for about 11 percent of Gross Domestic Product and is an important source of foreign currency and jobs in Egypt.

In a move to encourage sound environmental practices, the government has begun a $238 million project to slash carbon emissions in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

MOGADISHU, March 10 (Xinhua) -- A senior Islamist military commander close to Sheikh Dahir Aweys, a radical insurgent leader in Somalia was on Tuesday shot dead by unknown gunmen in the Somali capital Mogadishu, insurgent officials confirmed.

Bare Ali Bare, who was a senior commander with the insurgent group of Hezbul Islam, was shot dead as he walked in the main Bakara market of Mogadishu and the attackers escaped the scene, Ibrahim Bare Mohamoud, an official with Hezbul Islam confirmed to reporters in Mogadishu.

"We know that the commander was murdered by gunmen who escaped. We are investigating the killing of Bare Ali Bare," Mohamoud told reporters.

Bare was critical of the rival Islamist group of Al Shabaab which it fought in a number of southern Somali districts and has been vocal opponent of union between a faction within Hezbul Islam and Al Shabaab.

WASHINGTON, march 10 (Reuters) -- The U.S. State Department apologized on Tuesday for dismissive comments its spokesman made about Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's call for "jihad," often translated as "armed struggle," against Switzerland.

"I understand that my personal comments were perceived as a personal attack on the president," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, who made the comments, told reporters. "These comments do not reflect U.S. policy and were not intended to offend. I apologize if they were taken that way."

In apologizing, he appeared to be trying to end a dispute that prompted the head of Libya's state oil company to summon executives from U.S. energy companies Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips , Occidental, Hess and Marathon last week and warn them the dispute could hurt U.S. businesses in Libya.

The fracas centered on a February 25 speech Gaddafi made calling for a "jihad" against Switzerland. The term is often translated as "armed struggle," but a Libyan official has since said Gaddafi meant an economic boycott.

Asked about the speech, Crowley on February 26 said it reminded him of a previous Gaddafi address which, he said, involved "lots of words and lots of papers flying all over the place, not necessarily a lot of sense."

Libya's ambassador to the United States last week told Reuters that his country wanted good relations with Washington but would not allow its leader to be insulted.

Crowley said he was sorry the dispute had become an irritant in the relationship and said that U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jeff Feltman, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, would visit Libya next week for consultations.

LONDON, march 09 (Reuters) - Somalia's government would welcome U.S. air support for an expected offensive aimed at retaking control of areas from al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab rebels, President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed said on Tuesday.

Speaking on a visit to Britain, Sheikh Sharif added that international aid for reconstruction would be needed to secure any areas gained in the push, expected in coming weeks in a test of attempts to restore stability in the Horn of Africa nation.

The New York Times reported on March 5 U.S. forces could get involved by providing airstrikes and Special forces Operations if the offensive succeeded in dislodging al Qaeda fighters.

Asked to comment, Ahmed said: "If the U.S. government provides us with the air support, it will help the situation."

"If that is true, as written in the New York Times, then we would welcome it," he told a news conference through an interpreter.

It was not immediately clear whether Ahmed was referring to the possibility of air strikes or of supporting aerial surveillance. U.S. forces are believed to have conducted aerial reconnaissance of parts of Somalia for several years.

FOREIGN FIGHTERS "ROAMING"

Asked whether he also saw a role for U.S. ground forces in the push, Ahmed said: "I cannot answer that."

Any direct use of U.S. military power would be sensitive. American troops who were part of a U.N. humanitarian mission to Somalia in 1992 and 1993 were forced to pull out after Somali militia killed several marines in an attack on a U.S. helicopter.

Ahmed's U.N.-backed administration intends to oust the rebels from the capital and possibly other areas of the country, which has had no effective central government for 19 years.

His government has struggled to establish its influence, something that has been whittled down by a three-year-old revolt against his administration, which only controls parts of the capital.

Asked how he planned to hold any areas gained in the offensive, a critical task to establish authority, he said: "Our strategy is to mobilise the people, to secure the environment, to return the services and to start reconstruction."

"Our forces have prepared well," he said, but added: "We will need international assistance in the form of humanitarian aid and reconstruction after the liberation of these areas."

The offensive did not close off reconciliation efforts, he said, but he described al Shabaab as having a direct tie to al Qaeda and said both groups cooperated with Somalia's pirates.

The government says hundreds of foreign fighters have joined the revolt from countries in south Asia and the Gulf region and Western nations such as the United States and Britain.

Ahmed said it was hard to tell put a number on al Qaeda fighters in Somalia. "But it's also hard to exaggerate the presence of al Qaeda. It can be seen openly by people inside Somalia -- foreign fighters who are roaming," he said.

"The announcements by al Shabaab and al Qaeda make clear their presence in force. Recent events in Yemen are also a clear indication of the presence of al Qaeda in the area".

He denied reports that Somalis in nearby countries were being recruited to join the offensive, explaining there were plenty of Somalis in Somalia who wanted to serve in the army.

Abuja, march 09 (Reuters) -- Nigeria must prosecute those behind a weekend massacre and address underlying issues of poverty and discrimination if it is to end a cycle of violence in the zone between its Muslim north and Christian south, rights groups and diplomats said.

The United Nations, United States, rights groups and opposition politicians all urged the authorities to ensure those responsible face justice after attacks on Sunday on three Christian villages in which hundreds are feared to have died.

Residents of Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Ratsat, about 15 km (9 miles) south of the central city of Jos, buried dozens of bodies including those of women and children in a mass grave on Monday following the attacks, which they blamed on Muslim herders.

The raids were in apparent retaliation for four days of violence around Jos, the capital of Plateau state, in January which killed several hundred people, many of them in an attack on the mostly Muslim settlement of Kuru Karama.

"Better security is clearly vital but it would be a mistake to paint this purely as sectarian or ethnic violence, and to treat it solely as a security issue," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said.

"What is most needed is a concerted effort to tackle the underlying causes of the repeated outbreaks of ethnic and religious violence which Nigeria has witnessed in recent years, namely discrimination, poverty and disputes over land."

The latest unrest at the heart of Africa's most populous nation comes at a turbulent time, with Acting President Goodluck Jonathan trying to assert his authority while ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua remains too sick to govern.

Jonathan deployed troops to quell January's unrest and pledged that those found to have "engineered, encouraged or fanned" the violence would be brought to justice.

But a dusk-to-dawn curfew was still in place when Sunday's attack took place. Some villagers were hacked to death with machetes as they tried to flee their homes after hearing gunfire. Others were burned alive.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said the military deployment had been limited to major roads and failed to protect small communities. It called for a credible investigation into what it said had been a massacre of at least 200 Christian villagers.

"This kind of terrible violence has left thousands dead in Plateau state in the past decade, but no one has been held accountable," said Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "It's time to draw a line in the sand."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on political and religious leaders to find a "permanent solution" to the crisis in Jos. The United States urged the government to ensure those responsible faced justice in a "transparent manner".

"CROCODILE TEARS"

Plateau state lies at the crossroads of Nigeria's Muslim north and Christian south and fierce competition for control of fertile farmlands between indigenous groups and settlers from the north have repeatedly triggered unrest over the past decade.

Its position on Nigeria's main ethnic and religious fault line means it is viewed as a microcosm of the wider country, a patchwork of more than 200 ethnic groups.

The instability underscores the fragility of Africa's top energy producer as it approaches the campaign period for 2011 elections with uncertainty over who is really in charge.

"The killings are more political than religious ... The government is the problem. It has the power of arrest and prosecution. It has the ability and resources to gather intelligence," the opposition Action Congress party said.

"Concrete action to stop the cycle of impunity, rather than crocodile tears, will end the violence," it said.

Police spokesman Mohammed Lerama said 93 people had been arrested after Sunday's violence.

But Plateau state has been here before. Large numbers of arrests have not translated into large numbers of prosecutions.

More than 300 people were arrested in January and about half of them were due to be sent to the capital Abuja for prosecution, but it is unclear how many actually faced justice.

Local officials said many of those responsible for January's violence were the same people arrested but not prosecuted after similar unrest in November 2008.

Many of Nigeria's prisons are overcrowded and the legal system overburdened with cases. It is not uncommon for communities to punish criminals themselves and blame their actions on the country's weak judicial system.

WASHINGTON, March 9 (Xinhua) -- A senior U.S. military commander said on Tuesday the United States would support the Somali transitional government to retake the national capital Mogadishu.

William Ward, who runs the U.S. Africa Command, told a Senate hearing the Somali government's effort in retaking Mogadishu is " something that we would look to do in support."

He said the military would do this "to the degree the transitional federal government can in fact re-exert control over Mogadishu, with the help of AMISOM and others." AMISOM stands for the African Union Mission in Somalia.

Mogadishu witnesses near daily attacks on Somali government forces and African Union peacekeepers based there. The internationally recognized government of Somalia is struggling to fight off an Islamist insurgency poised to run over parts of the city with protection from a few thousand African Union peacekeepers.

Clashes have intensified recently in Mogadishu, with the office of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) saying last week nearly 26,000 people have been forced to escape violence in the capital since Feb. 1.

The New York Times reported on Friday the United States is helping the Horn of Africa nation's government put together a major offensive to take back the capital, providing training and support. The broadsheet also cited unnamed U.S. officials as saying Pentagon may send special forces to help, as well as striking militants from the sky.

Ward said the United States supports the transitional government, which "has for now our best potential for helping to turn around some of the instability and lack of governance."

Mogadishu is a sore spot in American memory, where 18 U.S. soldiers died in an operation there in 1993. Some of their bodies were dragged along the streets, and the images prompted the end of that intervention. The battle was made into a movie called Black Hawk Down.

HARARE, MARCH 09 (Reuters) -- Zimbabwe's High Court on Tuesday refused to overturn the election of the first opposition Speaker of Parliament since independence, after a challenge by a lawmaker from President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.

The ruling will ease concerns within the MDC, which accuses its coalition partners in ZANU-PF of carrying out actions that seek to undermine the fragile unity government.

Lovemore Moyo, a senior official from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, became the first opposition Speaker in August 2008 after the MDC ended ZANU-PF's majority in parliament in earlier elections.

But his election was immediately challenged by former information minister Jonathan Moyo -- elected on an independent ticket but rejoined ZANU-PF last year -- who argued that the vote failed to meet the test of a secret ballot.

Moyo said some MDC members had openly shown their ballot papers to other legislators in a move meant to influence them in their voting and that the whole process was chaotic.

High Court Judge Bharat Patel on Tuesday described the vote as "exuberant" and said while some MDC members had shown their ballot papers to colleagues, the actual voting was done in secret.

"It's clear that all members marked their ballot papers in secrecy and none were coerced to vote for any candidate," Patel said. "The application is therefore dismissed with costs."

KAMPALA, MARCH 09 (Reuters) -- Uganda's opposition will revoke existing production sharing agreements and force oil companies in the country to renegotiate their deals, a senior official said on Tuesday.

The east African country struck vast oil deposits around the Lake Albert region along the border with Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006, prompting a giddy scramble by foreign oil firms for stakes in the nascent sector.

Civil society organisations have attacked the deals, saying they favour the companies and have asked for more transparent and equitable revenue sharing with the Ugandan government.

"These agreements have a lot of loopholes and that's why the government has obstinately defied the wishes of its citizens and refused to disclose them," Beatrice Atim Anywar, shadow minister for natural resources and environment, told Reuters.

"Our objective is to immediately revoke these agreements and renegotiate with the companies afresh once we come into power."

Uganda is due to hold elections in February 2011 and the main opposition party, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), is seen posing a formidable challenge to incumbent President Yoweri Museveni, whose support has shrunk during his 24-year rule.

Uganda has five production sharing agreements (PSA). Among them, Tullow Oil has made the biggest advance in exploration and development and says it will begin commercial production later this year.

Anywar said her party opposed a clause in the agreements that says arbitration cases in any disputes with the exploration firms must be taken to London.

She said that if a dispute involved injustice suffered by local communities their members should be able to give testimony in person.

"How many people will our government be able to fly to London to bear witness to such a process?" Anywar said.

The opposition also objects to provisions compelling the government to compensate the companies in case of revenue losses resulting from amendments to PSA terms.

Anywar said that would curtail the government's prerogative to regulate activities that imperil environmental safety.

The government dismissed the FDC's threats.

"They are talking out of ignorance and populist propaganda. Let them come to government and may be they will appreciate how this industry works," said Energy Minister Hilary Onek.

BERLIN, MARCH 09 (Reuters) -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's condition is improving after successful gallbladder surgery in Germany on Saturday, a hospital spokesman said on Tuesday.

The spokesman added it was unclear how long the 81-year-old Mubarak would remain in the hospital in the western city of Heidelberg, but the medical team would give an update on his condition in the next two days.

Egyptian Health Minister Hatem el-Gabali, who is with Mubarak, said late on Monday that the president was surrounded by his family.

"President Mubarak is ... under the supervision of the medical team in the intensive care unit where the president is moving inside the room and is having semi-solid food," he said in a statement.

Mubarak, in office for almost three decades, handed power temporarily to his prime minister before the operation last week, Egyptian media said. He had shown no signs of frailty at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday.

MOGADISHU march 09 Reuters) -- Somalia's Islamist al Shabaab rebel group vowed on Monday to defend itself against any government offensive and to subject the U.S. to a failure worse than one it suffered in 1992 should it back the attack.

Unconfirmed media reports said over the weekend American military experts were advising Somali government troops ahead of their push to oust the rebels from the capital.

"We shall defend ourselves if they (government forces) attack us," al Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage told a news conference.

"They typically repeat offensive words, why don't they attack us? We shall never enter talks with the so-called government. America can do nothing to us -- it will face something worse than its failure in 1992 in Somalia."

American troops who were part of a U.N. humanitarian mission to Somalia in 1992 and 1993 were forced to pull out after Somali militia killed several marines in an attack on a U.S. helicopter.

The U.N.-backed administration of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is keen to drive the rebels out of the capital as a key part of restoring stability in the Horn of Africa nation which has had no effective central government for 19 years.

Sources said his troops are likely to attack rebel positions once the president returns from a trip to Europe and signs a political deal with the Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca, a moderate group which backs the government.

Al Shabaab will likely count on the help of another rebel group, the much smaller Hizbul Islam, which is led by Sheikh Dahir Aweys.

Al Shabaab, which Washington views as al Qaeda's proxy in the region, seeks to impose a strict version of Muslim law in the country.

Last month, it asked the U.N. food agency, World Food Programme, which has been central to the international community's response to the country's massive humanitarian crisis to leave.

"WFP will never operate again in the areas under our control," Rage said.

CONAKRY, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Guinea's former ruling party, the Party of Unity and Progress (PUP), is warming up ahead of the post- coup elections in June, according to party officials.

A popular meeting was held over the weekend at the headquarters of PUP by its members and supporters. The party had ruled the West African country for years before the military took over power on Dec. 23, 2008, hours after the death of president and PUP leader Lansana Conte.

Parties officials said on Monday that it was a grassroot warm- up in preparations for the party's congress before the presidential elections months away.

Under a decree signed on Sunday by the interim president of transition, Gen. Sekouba Konate,Guinea is to hold the first round of the presidential elections on June 27.

The PUP meeting was attended by the party's Secretary General Sekou Konate, former speaker of the National Assembly Aboubacar Sompare and the members of the political bureau.

In his speech, the former National Assembly speaker asked the members of the party to renew their strength and work in line with the wishes of the late president Conte.

Sompare told the party meeting that PUP should once again prove its power through unity and cohesion among members.

"We should not allow politicians and other Guineans who have looted from our country to have the power to determine the destiny of our nation," Sompare declared