The war against al-Shabab militants in Somalia has "ground to a halt" and needs a surge of almost 4,400 more African Union troops and massive U.N. assistance to break the stalemate and avoid failure, a top U.N. official said Wednesday.
Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson told the Security Council that the U.N.-endorsed African Union force and the Somali military lack "the capacity to push beyond areas already recovered" from an al-Qaida-linked group in the last 18 months during a successful campaign to recapture several cities, including Mogadishu and Kismayo.
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