Insurgents Briefly Capture Key Town in Show of Defiance

So far, however, the United Nations has been reluctant to become too deeply involved in Somalia.

The Security Council is considering the deployment of a 27,000-member peacekeeping force after a power-sharing agreement is reached.

Many analysts say, however, that the United Nations, already struggling to muster a force to deal with the crisis in Sudan's western Darfur region, would have trouble gathering that many troops.

Critics of the idea also say a neutral military force is needed before political negotiations in order to establish security and replace the Ethiopian troops, thus creating the conditions for peace ahead of a peacekeeping force.

"It's impossible now to wait for peace," said a Somali doctor who has been treating the wounded in Mogadishu, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. "The United Nations needs to contemplate making the peace."

A second proposal for such a force -- an 8,000-member coalition -- has not garnered much support, either.

Even a proposal to provide U.N. security for Ould-Abdallah during his visits to Somalia has not gained much traction.

The United States, meanwhile, has remained focused mostly on counterterrorism goals, which critics say is working against the longer-term project of nation-building because it provides a cause for more radical elements in the Somali opposition.

The United States this month conducted its fourth airstrike inside Somalia aimed at al-Qaeda associates whom U.S. intelligence officials blame for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

The strikes have failed to hit any of their intended targets, however, and have increased resentment toward the United States among Somalia's moderate Muslims.

Pentagon and State Department officials are debating whether to shift U.S. support from the transitional government to the relatively stable region of Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991 but has yet to receive international recognition.

In recent weeks, the State Department dispatched a team of contractors to Somaliland to explore the idea of establishing a military presence at an old airstrip there, according to members of the team interviewed in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. Somaliland's government, eager for recognition, welcomed the possibility.

"If the U.S. wishes to have a military presence in Somaliland territory, we will welcome them and accept them," said Somaliland President Dahir Rayale Kahin. "There are discussions, and we agreed to work together toward mutual ends. But things have not materialized so far."

Somalis eager to resolve the conflict are not optimistic that any of the plans on the table will amount to much.

A peace activist who shares a name with the Somali president, Abdullahi Yusuf, said international support for the transitional government -- and, by extension, the Ethiopian troops backing it -- is making the situation worse.

"The occupation is coming not only from Ethiopia but from the international superpowers, and that is making everything difficult," he said from Mogadishu. "The solutions are difficult, and the problems are increasing day by day. Everything is getting worse."

Special correspondent Kassahun Addis in Hargeysa, Somaliland, contributed to this report.