NAIROBI, Dec 15: Somalia’s prime minister said on Saturday he would welcome the deployment of US military teams to seek out and dismantle any terrorist camps in his country and ensure no Al-Qaeda fighters escaped there from Afghanistan.

Hassan Abshir Farah, whose government is accused by militia rivals of harbouring terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden, said he was prepared to help US military investigation teams deploy in the capital Mogadishu and on the coast to deny refuge to followers of the Saudi-born militant fleeing Afghanistan.

“We need the Americans to come back and we welcome them. We need their support. Somalia today is not the Somalia of yesterday,” he told Reuters, referring to catastrophic US peacekeeping efforts in Somalia in the early 1990s.