(Adds details of draft resolution)

By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 13 (Reuters) - African nations pressed the United Nations on Monday to supply peacekeeping backup for turbulent Somalia similar to that initially provided for Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.

A Security Council meeting on Somalia heard a request from the African Union to match one of two support packages, known as "light" and "heavy," that were voted through to try to end the Darfur violence, diplomats said.

The council responded with a draft resolution that called for more contingency planning for a U.N. peacekeeping operation to replace an AU force in Somalia, but without committing itself to sending one.

The United Nations, the AU and Sudan agreed last year on a three-phase plan to bolster AU forces in Darfur. An initial "light support package" had some 135 U.N. troops and police, plus advisers and civilian staff. In April, Khartoum agreed to a "heavy" package of 3,600 troops, police and civilians. Last month, a much larger "hybrid" U.N.-AU force was approved.

Somalia's struggling interim government, backed by other African nations, wants the United Nations to take over the AU mission there, which should number 8,000 but which so far consists of only 1,600 Ugandans. Many Security Council members are wary while violence persists.

Congo Republic Ambassador Pascal Gayama, current council president, said U.N. and AU officials should discuss how to provide logistical and financial support to the AU's AMISOM mission in Somalia to enable new contingents to join.

"We feel that at least a kind of heavy or a light package from the U.N. would be really welcome," Gayama told reporters. The AU's top diplomat, Alpha Oumar Konare, had written to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the subject, he said.

CONTINGENCY PLANS

Clashes between Islamist insurgents in the Horn of Africa country and Ethiopian-backed government troops have intensified in the past two months, despite the convening of a peace congress between Somalia's many clans and factions.

But Gayama dismissed the argument that for U.N. peacekeepers to go to Somalia there had to be a peace to keep. "What is the reason of having peace first?" he asked. "The Security Council has to move when there is no peace."

The U.N. envoy to Somalia, Francois Lonseny Fall, told reporters, however, that prospects for a U.N. mission continued to depend on political progress in Somalia.

Later on Monday, Britain circulated a draft Security Council resolution to renew U.N. authorization for AMISOM, which expires in a week's time.

The resolution took note of the AU request for a stepped up U.N. role and invited Ban to "further develop the existing contingency plans for a possible deployment" of a U.N. peacekeeping operation replacing AMISOM.

The draft also threatened unspecified "measures" against those trying to thwart a peaceful political process, threatening force against the government or AMISOM, or undermining stability in the region.

AlertNet news is provided by