ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Ethiopia’s prime minister, who has sent troops to bolster Somalia’s interim government, said yesterday that the Qaeda-linked militants controlling much of the neighboring nation are a threat to the Horn of Africa and the wider world.

Prime Minister Zenawi said he held out little hope that the secular, U.N.-backed acting government in Somalia can reach a peace agreement with the Islamic militants.

“Apparently some people believe that the Al Qaeda elements in Mogadishu … are people one can talk to in a reasonable manner, that they can be convinced not to be extremists,” Mr. Meles said in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press.

The extremists “represent a direct threat first to Somalia and the Somali people , second to the region and Ethiopia, and lastly to the international community,” he said. “When they control the whole of Somalia it would be very naive to assume that they will mend their ways, cease to be terrorists and become very civilized and very tame pussycats.”

Ethiopia, a largely Christian nation, backs Somalia’s two-year-old acting government, which has failed to exert any influence outside its base in the western city of Baidoa. Eritrea, a nation that broke away from Ethiopia in a 1961-91 civil war and fought a 1998–2000 border war with its rival, supports the Islamic militia.