Brussels - The deployment of warships from European Union states against pirates off the coast of Somalia is to begin in December, EU diplomats said Friday.

The final decisions on the matter are to be taken on Monday at a EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.

The operation, to be called Atalanta, is to be led by an admiral from Britain's Northwood naval command, and tasked with protecting freighters against pirate attacks either off the Somali coast or on their way into Mogadishu ports.

Mogadishu/Paris - A group of armed Somali men have kidnapped six foreigners - four aid workers and two pilots - near the town of Dusamareb in central Somalia on Wednesday, the French government confirmed on Wednesday.

In a statement issued in Paris, the foreign ministry said that two French citizens working for a French NGO were among those abducted.

The Belgian State Department had said earlier that one of the kidnap victims was a Belgian national.

Mogadishu/Paris  - A group of armed Somali men kidnapped six foreigners - four aid workers and two pilots - near the town of Dusamareb in central Somali on Wednesday, residents said.

Mohamoud Dhaqane, a businessman in Dusamareb, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the six were seized by a convoy of armed gunmen at an airstrip.

Mogadishu  - Somali armed men kidnapped six foreigners, including four aid workers and two airline pilots in near the town of Dusamareb in central Somali on Wednesday, residents said.

Mohamoud Dhaqane, a businessman in Dusamareb, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa the six were taken when armed gunmen stormed the airstrip as they were due to depart for Nairobi.

There was some confusion over which organization they worked for.

Nairobi  - The United Nations children's agency UNICEF Tuesday condemned the recent stoning to death of a 13-year-old Somali girl for adultery in the port town of Kismayo, which was taken over by Islamist insurgents in August.

The girl, Aisha Duhulow, was last week stoned to death for adultery under Islamic law, or sharia. Initial reports said that the girl was in her twenties.

UNICEF said that reports indicated the girl had not committed adultery, but been raped by three men while walking to visit her grandmother in the capital Mogadishu.

Nairobi - Kenya was on a heightened terror alert Friday after recent suicide bombings in neighbouring Somalia and the arrest Thursday in Nairobi of a man carrying what were believed to be detonators.

Five suicide bombs in the breakaway Somali regions of Somaliland and Puntland killed at least 26 people Wednesday.

Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua said the fact that the bombings took place as Somali leaders were meeting with regional heads of state in Kenya at the same time had raised fears in Kenya.