New York - The two-month-old Somali government has taken steps to meet benchmarks that would allow the deployment of a UN peacekeeping operation in the troubled land known more for piracy than development, a Somali official said Friday.

Foreign Minister Mohamad Abdullahi Omaar told the UN Security Council in an open session that President Shiekh Shariff Shiekh Ahmed, elected on January 30, has taken security measures and steps to mobilize support for the peace process.

"Today in Somalia, there are no warlords, there are no clan wars, there no political factions holding the country hostage," Omaar said.

Omaar said some Somali factions still refused to join the government even though the government upholds the Islamic law Sharia as the source of its new constitution under discussion.

Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden on Thursday urged Somali militants to topple Sheikh Ahmed and continue fighting "infidels" in video footage posted on Islamist websites. Bin Laden accused the new Somali president of apostasy in a new audio tape carried by Islamist web sites on Thursday.

The tape, entitled "Fight on, champions of Somalia" and dedicated to "my patient, persevering Muslim brothers in Mujahid Somalia," was produced by al-Qaeda's al-Sahab media-production house. The audio was released as a video showing a still photo of Bin Laden and English subtitles.

The Somali foreign minister called on Uganda and Burundi to send three additional battalions of troops to Somalia urgently, backed by improved equipment, logistics and medical facilities. The UN Mission in Somalia and the Joint Security Froces of the Government are maintaining military components to help Mogadishu while discussion of a UN peacekeeping mission is underway.

Omaar urged the 15-nation council to deploy the peaceekeping mission as his government met a "significant" number of benchmarks demanded for such a deployment.

The UN special envoy for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said the UN should launch a 100-day assistance programme in the country to help "Somalis reclaim the future of their country."

Ould-Abdallah said Somalia needs humanitarian assistance more than ever after two decades of conflict. But he said more political and diplomatic efforts are needed to work out a lasting solution.

A UN report released this week said acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea trebled in 2008 with the pirates taking an estimated 30 million dollars in ransom, operating mostly on shipping lanes between the Suez Canal and Indian Ocean.

The International Maritime Bureau recorded 293 acts of piracy in 2008, including 111 which took place off the Somali coast, for a total increase of 200 per cent last year in the Suez Canal-Indian Ocean corridor alone.

On Thursday, pirates seized a Greek-owned cargo ship with 24 crew off Somali coast. (dpa)