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International leaders attending the London conference on Somalia pledged on Thursday (February 23rd) to boost aid for Somalia to tackle Islamist militancy, piracy and political instability, while al-Shabaab pledged to wage war against any international peace effort, AFP reported.

"After two decades of bloodshed and some of the worst poverty on earth, there are the first signs of fragile progress in Somalia," said British Prime Minister David Cameron. "Because when pirates are disrupting vital trade routes and kidnapping tourists and when radicalism is poisoning young minds and breeding terrorism, it is in all our interests to support the Somali people in taking back their country."

In conference's final communiqué, representatives from more than 50 countries and international organisations called on the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to meet the August deadline to hand over power and work towards forming a representative government.

"The conference focused on the underlying causes of instability, as well as the symptoms (famine, refugees, piracy and terrorism)," delegates said in the final statement. "We, the international community, agreed: to inject new momentum into the political process; to strengthen AMISOM and help Somalia develop its own security forces; to help build stability at local level; and to step up action to tackle pirates and terrorists."

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki told the conference that supporting security in Somalia means focusing on developing Somali security forces.

"There is need to support the setting up of a nucleus Somali armed force," Kibaki said in a statement released by the government. "This demands that the international community [facilitate] the immediate integration of the various trained units into the TFG force. Such action will also enable the TFG to take effective control of the liberated areas."

Al-Shabaab vowed to target any international effort to bring stability and peace to Somalia. "We will confront and counter, by any means possible, all the outcomes of the London conference," the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab organisation said in a statement on Thursday.