Algeria's Ahmed Attaf, who took over as chairman of the OAU council of ministers, and OAU Secretary General Salim Ahmed Salim both described defusing Africa's wars as the top priority for the continent.

``Everyone knows that resolution of conflict in Africa is the main challenge of the moment,'' Attaf told the opening session of the meeting that will draft resolutions for OAU leaders to debate when the full summit opens on Monday.

Attaf said he hoped that the peace deal signed by Sierra Leone's warring parties on Wednesday and the Congo peace deal, which is due to be signed by all sides on Saturday, would bring a lasting end to the conflicts.

Salim paid tribute to the search for peace in the two countries, particularly the protracted Lusaka negotiations on the Congo, but said that more needed to be done.

``More importantly, we must strive to ensure that the success of the Lusaka peace process is consolidated so as to bring about lasting peace and stability in that country,'' he added.

Elsewhere, Salim highlighted Angola's slide back into civil war, the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, conflicts in Burundi, Somalia, southern Sudan and the Comoros.

``I believe our meeting in Algiers should provide an opportunity for a serious reflection on the challenge posed by the problem of conflicts in Africa and chart the way forward,'' he said.

For host Algeria, the 1999 summit marks a return to centre stage following seven years of violence and revenge that has killed 100,000 people since the army scrapped 1992 elections the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win.

``The summit is a showcase for Algeria to show that things are back to normal. That Algeria is back on its feet and ready to assume its regional and international duties for peace and development,'' one senior Arab diplomat told Reuters.

Algeria has traditionally been at the cutting edge of radical change in the continent, particularly during the struggle for independence. It won its own independence from France in 1962 after a bitter war.

Islamic guerrillas responded to the scrapping of the elections by unleashing a reign of terror across Africa's second largest nation, slashing the throats of men, women and children with a macabre abandon that sent shock waves round the world. Rights groups denounced extra-judicial government reprisals.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who won April elections boycotted by the opposition, has made peace with the armed wing of the FIS but has yet to persuade the more radical Islamic GIA to lay down their arms.

Diplomats and foreign residents of Algiers say that security has improved. On the surface, security is discreet. Residents say it has been stepped up considerably for the summit.

Many of Africa's top names are expected for the summit. Nigeria's newly elected civilian president Olusegun Obasanjo and South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, who is stepping out of Nelson Mandela's shadow, will both be attending their first OAU summit since taking office.

Diplomats say both men, whose countries are the giants of black Africa with armies full of potential peacekeepers, are looking for a wider African role.

Egypt's Hosni Mubarak will be attending his first summit since 1995 when Islamic fundamentalist gunmen tried to kill him at a summit in Addis Ababa.

The deployment of an estimated 3,000 Ethiopian soldiers has quickly changed the balance of power between Somalia's warring clans and put prominent warlord Hussein Aideed on the defensive.

That, diplomats hope, could force Aideed and other warlords to drop any ambitions of ruling the country single-handedly and instead cut a deal allowing regional clan leaders significant control over their own territories.

But some faction leaders and ordinary Somalis worry the new escalation of fighting could simply spin out of control with other regional states pouring ever more weapons into Somalia.

The most dramatic impact of Ethiopia's intervention so far has been in the strategic central city of Baidoa, where its army last month helped a local guerrilla group -- the Rahanwein Resistance Army (RRA) -- launch a huge attack that forced Aideed's forces to flee after almost four years of occupation.

The RRA, made up of Digil-Mirifle clansmen, are widely seen as a legitimate force with wide support in Baidoa and across the central breadbasket regions of Bay and Bakool. But they almost certainly could not have seized Baidoa without Ethiopia's help.

Since the RRA took over Baidoa on June 6, U.N. officials say its population has jumped from 15,000 to 50,000 as people who had fled Aideed's rule return hoping to rebuild their lives inside a city that was once fairly prosperous but has been destroyed by years of artillery fire and running street battles.

While the international community formally complains that the military involvement of both Ethiopia and Eritrea in Somalia has added to the misery of its eight-year civil war, diplomats privately say the long-term net effect could be positive.

``It has given Aideed a bloody nose, and that could push him to negotiate,'' said one senior diplomatic source.

Another said that leaving Somalia in the same anarchic chaos of the last eight years was ``very dangerous for regional stability'' and that Ethiopia's military offensive against Aideed could help prepare the ground for meaningful peace talks between rival groups as long as the Ethiopian government does not go too far.

``If they can avoid a massive intervention and pull their troops back, I think we can turn a blind eye to their intervention and accept it,'' he said.

But there are no guarantees in Somali politics and foreign powers have seen even the best-laid plans blow up in their faces. U.S. and U.N. forces went into Somalia in 1992 on a mission aimed at restoring order and weakening the warlords, but achieved nothing and left with their tails between their legs.

Ethiopia has for years seen Aideed as a major threat because he supports the Oromo Liberation Front, an Ethiopian rebel group which launches attacks inside Ethiopia from bases in Somalia.

That rivalry has became even more explosive since last year with the eruption of a border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Hoping to stir up more trouble for Ethiopia along its border with Somalia, Eritrea sent massive arms shipments to Aideed. Ethiopia's response was to deploy troops in support of the RRA around Baidoa and set up a buffer zone along the border.

Aideed, a former U.S. marine whose power base is in south Mogadishu, has clearly been weakened but he is not finished yet and he has in recent days visited Eritrea, Libya and Egypt -- his main foreign allies -- in search for support.

If he goes back to Mogadishu with his pockets full of money and a promise of more guns, an Ethiopian withdrawal would become less likely and Somalia could be awash with even more guns.

Western diplomats seem confident Aideed will not be able to recover but they have written him off before only to see him bounce back.

And the idea of foreign armies fixing Somalia's problems is looked on with great suspicion even by those who bitterly oppose Aideed.

``This is a very dangerous game they are playing,'' said an ally of another Somali warlord, Mohamed Said Hersi, better known as General Morgan.

"If I ever meet him, I'll beat him with this stick," the 89-year-old woman hissed as she stood in front of a miserable pile of charred possessions. Last month, Aidid's forces were driven out of Baidoa, which became known as "the City of Death" after a war-provoked famine devastated the town and surrounding region in 1992.

Hawa's village near Baidoa was looted and burned by Aidid's militiamen in March as they fought the Rahanwein Resistance Army, for control of the market town that is the Rahanwein's traditional capital. The RRA was able to push Aidid's forces out of the Baidoa area, 250 kilometres northwest of the Somali capital Mogadishu, with the help of troops from neighbouring Ethiopia.

A 13-month border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea has fuelled the recent increase in fighting in Somalia - Ethiopian troops have moved into the southern part of the country to head off Ethiopian guerrillas of the Oromo Liberation Front sent there by Eritrea.

In this case, the guerrillas were housed in an abandoned shoe factory on the outskirts of Baidoa and fled alongside Aidid's militia.

With Ethiopia and Eritrea making Somalia their extended battleground, the two countries have begun supporting rival Somali factions, threatening to worsen the civil war in one of the world's poorest countries.

While Rahanwein fighters savour their recent victory and plan more battles, hunger and disease hang over Baidoa and the surrounding villages. In addition to the war, erratic rainfall has contributed to a food shortage.

The region never fully recovered from the 1992 war between the retreating army of deposed U.S.-backed dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and the pursuing forces of Aidid's late father, Gen. Mohamed Farah Aidid.

There are no schools, no electricity and a barely functioning hospital.

Fearing another famine, the UN-sponsored Somali Aid Co-ordination Body issued an appeal Tuesday for $17 million in aid to keep Baidoa from again becoming "the City of Death."

The UN Food Security Assessment Unit said thousands of tonnes of food are needed for an estimated one million people for the next six months.

After a two-year absence due to dangerous conditions, the UN Children's Fund sent two expatriate workers back to Baidoa last month to beef up the local Somali staff. Edouard Bejbeder of UNICEF said the first job is to rehabilitate the 15 water wells in and around Baidoa.

The UN agency is also repairing health centres, immunizing children, mostly against measles, and providing food to 65,000 malnourished children.

Hassan Mohamed Nur, chairman of the Rahanwein Resistance Army, said reconciliation among Somalia's six clans and dozens of sub-clans can come only after Aidid has been defeated militarily.

Nur also ruled out any reconciliation with other faction leaders until his clan recovers the land that has been occupied by militiamen from Aidid's Habr-Gedir sub-clan. In the meantime, Nur said his forces will focus on rebuilding Baidoa.

"Aidid is not willing to negotiate," Nur said.

"And since they are occupying our territory, we are not willing to negotiate. I have no other way to solve the problem but to fight."

There has been no central government in Somalia since Aidid's father joined forces with another Hawiye clan leader, Mahdi Mohamed, against Siad Barre in January 1991. As Siad Barre's forces fled, they turned on each other and Somalia descended into chaos.

North Eastern Provincial Commissioner Maurice Makhanu said the decision also barred movement of people, vehicles and goods from Somalia.

He explained in a statement on national radio Monday night that all entry points stretching over 300 km between Dif in Wajir district and Lamu in Kenya's coast province was officially closed.

The administrator also confirmed that the Somali National Front, whose militia invaded Kenya last week and robbed military vehicles, hardware and uniforms, had failed to return a high frequency communication system.

Meanwhile, Kenya has beefed up security at all its border entry points.

The minister in charge of internal security, Maj. Marsden Madoka, said Tuesday the security arrangements are aimed at stopping aggression by warring parties from Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan