Iran tried to obtain uranium from Somalia in return for supplying weapons to the governmentless country’s Islamist movement, the United Nations said yesterday.

A report compiled for the Security Council found that Iran is one of seven countries breaking a U.N. arms embargo by providing weapons to the Islamist radicals who control most of southern Somalia, including the capital, Mogadishu.

This influx of weapons increases the chances of a new regional war in the Horn of Africa. It also underlines the close ties that Somalia’s Islamists, who style themselves the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts, have forged with radical regimes across the Islamic world, notably Syria and Iran.

The report found that 720 Somali fighters were sent to Lebanon in the summer to aid Hezbollah during the war with Israel. In return, Hezbollah dispatched five advisers to Somalia to provide advanced military training.

The flow of weapons into Somalia has “dramatically increased in terms of numbers of arms, frequency of delivery, and weapons’ sophistication,” the 86-page report reads.

While most of the shipments consist of small arms, it adds: “Ominously, new and more sophisticated types of weapons are also coming into Somalia, including portable surface-to-air missiles, multiple rocket launchers, and second generation, infrared-guided anti-tank weapons.”

Three illegal shipments from Tehran are detailed. On July 25, an aircraft carrying Iranian arms landed at Baledogle airport near Mogadishu. This consignment included 1,000 machine-guns, 45 surface-to-air missiles, M-79 rocket launchers, and land mines.

After its arrival, the U.N. says Iran promised the Islamists further weapons, but only in return for uranium, presumably for use in Tehran’s nuclear program.

Two Iranians were sent to the Somali town of Dhusa Mareb to negotiate this deal. “At the time of the writing, there were two Iranians in Dhusa Mareb engaged in matters linked to uranium in exchange for arms,” it said.

Somalia’s recoverable uranium deposits, totaling about 6,600 tons, are among the smallest in Africa, but the country collapsed into chaos 15 years ago when its central government was destroyed. The Islamists, who captured Mogadishu from a coalition of secular warlords in June, are now believed to control the area where uranium is present.

Tehran appears to have sought the right to exploit these deposits, which could be shipped to Iran through Mogadishu’s large port.