The UN Security Council on Thursday set up a special mission to Somalia in a move described as the biggest international commitment to the conflict-stricken nation in two decades. A British-proposed resolution set up the new UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) that diplomats said should be working by the end of June. Up to 200 security, human rights, political and financial experts will work with Somalia's fledgling government in a move that could lead to the 17,000-strong African military force in the Somalia coming under UN control.

Somalia, where almost 260,000 people -- half of them young children -- died of hunger in a 2010-2012 famine, according to a UN report on Thursday, is an impoverished country in the Horn of Africa. It has been ravaged by a civil war since the fall of the regime of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991: - GEOGRAPHY: Somalia is 637,657 square kilometres (246,200 square miles) in area, including the autonomous northern states of Puntland and Somaliland.

Ugandan police said Friday they had received credible information that Somalia's Al Qaeda-linked Shebab group was planning an attack in Uganda. "We have received information that Shebab terrorists... plan to carry out attacks within the eastern Africa region and in particular Uganda," police spokesperson Judith Nabakooba said at a press conference. "Together with other security agencies, we are verifying this information that we take to be credible," she said, adding that Uganda's services were "activating measures to avert the evil plans of these dangerous criminals."

By Richard Lough MOGADISHU (Reuters) - In a sign of growing optimism that Somalia is winning a struggle against pirates and al Qaeda-linked insurgents, Britain opened an embassy on Thursday in a set of four metal cabins at Mogadishu airport. It was the first such move by a Western power since Somalia began to emerge from more than two decades of conflict. Turkey and Iran are among others vying for influence in the Horn of Africa country, with growing commercial ties and diplomatic missions already up and running.