By Frank Nyakairu
NAIROBI, Feb 9 (Reuters) - A small African Union peacekeeping mission in Mogadishu must be reinforced fast to capitalise on the arrival of a new Somali president, the AU said on Monday.
Nicolas Bwakira, the AU's special representative for the Horn of Africa nation, said Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's election at United Nations-led talks in Djibouti provided a rare opportunity for peace in the country, which has been at war for 18 years.
"Now that there is an expanded parliament and a new president, we feel we have to accelerate the implementation of AMISOM activities," Bwakira told Reuters in an interview.
The AU force in Mogadishu, AMISOM, currently has about 3,200 soldiers from Uganda and Burundi.
Bwakira said the AU would help Ahmed reach out to the warring parties, and would also provide funding to pay the salaries of 2,700 paramilitaries to boost security in the bomb-wrecked city.
At a news conference at police headquarters in Mogadishu on Monday, Ahmed called for international aid and urged civilians uprooted by two years of fighting to return home.
Insurgents fired mortar bombs at the presidential palace on Saturday, hours after Ahmed returned to the city after being feted at an AU summit in Ethiopia.
Bwakira said Uganda and Burundi would deploy two more battalions of 850 men before the end the of month, bringing AMISOM's strength to 5,100 -- although still short of the planned 8,000.
Nigeria still said it was sending a long-delayed battalion too, but needed logistical support, he said.
Many countries have been loath to send troops to a nation where two years of fighting has killed more than 16,000 civilians and driven another 1 million from their homes.
Ahmed was the more moderate of two leaders of a sharia courts group that brought some stability to Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia in 2006, before Washington's main regional ally, Ethiopia, invaded to oust them.
Ethiopia's military withdrew last month, clearing the way for Ahmed's election in Djibouti a week ago.
He is opposed by hardline Islamist rebels including the al Shabaab group, which Washington accuses of links to al Qaeda.
