The remnants of the Islamist militias that controlled much of Somalia until last week dug in to face a final assault from Somali government soldiers and their Ethiopian allies today as the country called for urgent international help.

American warships patrolled off the forested, southern coastline of Somalia to prevent the fighters escaping by sea from Ras Kamboni, a settlement on the Somali Kenyan border where extremist Islamist groups have run training camps since the late 1990s.

Somali commanders said hundreds of Islamist fighters had withdrawn to Ras Kamboni after abandoning Kismayo, the last town under the control of the Islamic Courts Union that was driven out of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, last Thursday.

"They have dug huge trenches around Ras Kamboni but have only two options: to drown in the sea or to fight and die," reported Colonel Barre "Hirale" Aden Shire, the Somali Defence Minister, who said that Ethiopian aircraft would be used in the attack.

After suffering a series of defeats at the hands of the better-equipped, heavily-armed Ethiopian forces since December 23, many of Somalia's Islamist fighters have melted back into the ranks of their tribal clans, but as many as 3,000 hardline militants are believed to remain committed to guerilla war against the country's weak transitional government.

Today they received the support of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy in Al Qaeda. In an internet posting, al-Zawahiri characterised the unrest in Somalia as a holy war against largely-Christian Ethiopia and urged Islamist fighters to conduct an insurgency similar to those underway in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"You must ambush, mine, raid and (carry out) martyrdom campaigns so that you can wipe them out," he said. "As happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, when the world’s strongest power was defeated by the campaigns of the mujahideen, troops going to heaven, so its slaves shall be defeated on the Muslim lands of Somalia."

The confrontation in Ras Kamboni took shape as an international panel in Nairobi, including representatives from the United Nations, European Union and America called for urgent funding to pay for the deployment of 8,000 African peacekeepers to Somalia.

Ethiopia, whose firepower enabled the Somalia's fragile, UN-supported government to topple the Islamist militias, has said it needed to wipe out the terrorist threat posed by the Islamists but has no intention to keep its forces in the country for more than a few weeks.

To stop Somalia sliding back into the anarchy of its warring clans, President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, himself a former warlord, today requested the "speedy deployment" of international troops. Uganda has already promised between 1,000 and 2,000 troops and Rwanda, Tanzania, South Africa and Nigeria could also contribute to the force.

The deployment of international peacekeepers in Somalia will raise unhappy memories of the UN's attempts to deliver aid and restore order after the fall of Somalia's last meaningful government: the dictatorship of Siad Barre in 1991.

Two UN operations, which ran from 1992 to 1995, cost nearly $2 billion and 147 lives, including the deaths of 18 American soldiers, who were killed when militias in Mogadishu shot down two Black Hawk helicopters in October 1994.

The fighting and global press coverage led to the withdrawal of US soldiers and cast a pall over American peacekeeping attempts for the rest of the decade.

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