African Union peacekeepers will remain in Somalia another six months, the organisation decided at a meeting Wednesday, just hours before the force's mandate expired.
"The mandate was due to end this evening, and the UN was to take over from Amisom (the AU peacekeeping force), but for the moment the UN is not ready, (so) we have decided to stay on," AU spokesman Assane Ba told AFP.
A force of around 8,000 African Union troops was meant to have been sent to Somalia at the start of the year but only around 1,500 Ugandan troops have so far arrived in Mogadishu, where they have been the subject of numerous attacks.
Nigeria, Burundi, Malawi and Ghana which promised to co-contribute have not sent troops. Burundi last week announced a delay in sending nearly 1,000 troops owing to lack of equipment
Despite the presence of peacekeepers and Ethiopians and Somali troops, roadside explosions, grenade attacks and gunfire have surged in lawless Mogadishu. The violence has been blamed on Islamists insurgents who were defeated in late April after weeks of devastating artillery duels.
The Ugandan army said it was ready to keep its troops in Somalia despite a delay by other nations to deploy.
"There was an arrangement that the United Nations Security Council takes over (after the end of the initial mandate), but they seem not to be ready because they still have Darfur and the Democratic Republic of Congo," army spokesman Felix Kulaije told AFP.
The extension comes a day before the resumption of Somali peace talks aimed at reconciling the different factions blocking a return to normalcy in Somalia.
On Sunday, attackers fired seven mortar shells in Mogadishu, two of which exploded near the venue of the peace talks as Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was addressing the delegates.
Organisers adjourned the talks to Thursday, saying some delegates had not arrived.
The ICU leaders exiled in Eritrea have demanded the conference be held outside Somalia in a neutral country and only after the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops.
Home to about a million people, Somalia has been a theatre of a bloody power struggle that has defied numerous UN-backed peace initiatives since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
