By David Blair, Africa Correspondent
Eleven countries are fuelling Somalia's civil war by supplying arms to either the Islamist movement in control of Mogadishu, the capital, or their bitter rivals in the country's official government, according to the United Nations.
A massive inflow of weapons and supplies threatens to turn Somalia into the battleground for a new regional war in the Horn of Africa.
Eight countries, including Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Egypt, are supplying the Islamists.
Three are backing Somalia's internationally recognised government based in the ruined town of Baidoa.
The UN report – which has yet to be released — has been seen by experts interviewed by Reuters news agency.
Its key findings are that the Islamists, who seized Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia in June, have benefited from huge outside support, largely from the Muslim world.
Iran has given them 250 anti-aircraft missiles and some 1,000 foreign "jihadists" have arrived in Somalia, including experts in bomb-making and assassination.
The Mogadishu Islamists have forged links with Hizbollah in Lebanon and received practical support from Syria, Libya, Sudan, Egypt, Djibouti and Saudi Arabia.
Eritrea, a non-Muslim country, has also sent about 2,500 soldiers to Somalia in support of the Islamists, who style themselves the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts.
The main enemy of Somalia's Islamists is neighbouring Ethiopia, with whom Somalia has a longstanding border dispute.
Eritrea also accuses Ethiopia of occupying its territory and the two countries fought a war between 1998 and 2000.
Eritrea appears to be supplying the Islamists on the principle of "my enemy's enemy is my friend".
Ethiopia, for its part, has sent between 5,000 and 10,000 troops to Somalia in order to back the official administration in Baidoa.
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