Mwai Kibaki, the Kenyan president, has said he will convene an urgent regional summit to discuss the worsening situation in Somalia.
"As a country we are also keen on experiencing regional peace and stability. It is for this reason that I wish to appeal for peace in the Horn of Africa," he said in a New Year message.
"As chairman of IGAD [Intergovernmental Authority on Development], I will be convening an IGAD summit early in the new year in order to urgently discuss the unfolding events in Somalia."
IGAD is an East African group comprising Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia.
Kibaki did not give a date for the summit that comes after Kenyan diplomats made a failed attempt last week to avert the latest stage of the conflict by inviting Somali Islamic courts leaders to secret talks in Nairobi.
He said: "We don't want people to continue fighting, what are they fighting for ... in the end it all, you will see people dead."
Ongoing assault
The Kenyan leader spoke as Somali government forces backed by Ethiopian troops and tanks attacked Islamic courts fighters near their final stronghold town of Kismayo in the south, about 500km south of the capital Mogadishu.
The militia's commanders conceded on Sunday that government and Ethiopian troops, backed by tanks and trucks, had taken control of Jilib township, about 100km north of Kismayo.
Kenya, which mediated the convoluted peace talks that ended in the creation of the Somali interim government in 2004, faces the prospect of receiving additional Somali refugees.