Peacekeepers in Somalia and the war crimes warrant for Sudan's president dominated the final day of an African Union summit on Friday, after a late-night compromise on a new regional Authority.

Leaders of the 53-member bloc held marathon talks on Thursday night to reach a pre-dawn deal on the Authority that will be tasked with coordinating defense, foreign relations and trade policies.

Despite relentless pressure from Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, the current African Union chief, to grant the Authority broad influence over policy, the summit left the new body toothless to act without an explicit mandate from the member states.

Kadhafi had hoped the AU's new executive authority would mark a major step toward his dreamed "United States of Africa," but the continent's biggest economy South Africa, as well as top oil producers Nigeria and Angola, won out with their insistence on a more gradual approach to integration.

"There are some small steps towards consultations and common African policy positions, but those who want to go slowly came out ahead," said one minister who participated in the talks.

The 53 member states still must ratify the changes, meaning the African Union still has a long wait to see the existing AU Commission transformed into the Authority.

The compromise settled the most contentious debate at the summit, but the 24 leaders who came to Kadhafi's hometown of Sirte still must tackle the thorny question of how to react to the war crimes indictment of Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir.

Thirty African countries are parties to the statutes that created the International Criminal Court.

A draft text backed by Libya would force them to refuse to arrest Beshir if he visits their territory, as required under their treaty obligations to the court.

Even some supporters of the court say they do not want to arrest Beshir for fear of creating a power vacuum in Khartoum and undermining the peace process in Darfur, where he is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"That would create problems that we cannot control. The African Union has peacekeepers there," said one delegate from a country that is party to the ICC.

Others are arguing that each country should be allowed to make its own decision, saying the African Union should not dictate to its members whether to adhere to the ICC treaty.

Somalia tops priority

The summit was also considering a raft of conflicts roiling the continent, most dramatically in Somalia, where Islamist insurgents launched an offensive against the internationally backed government nearly two months ago.

The African Union has 4,300 peacekeepers deployed in Somalia, its largest force on the continent. But their role is confined largely to protecting the president and ensuring that key sea and airports remain open.

Somalia and five of its neighbours want the AU to deploy a total of 8,000 peacekeepers, a contingent that has already been approved but not yet manned.

The leaders were moving toward an agreement on bolstering the peacekeeping force and strengthening the Somali police, while Eritrea came under pressure for allegedly harbouring extremists with ties to al-Qaeda who are fueling the unrest in Somalia.

"They have impressed upon Eritrea to be more responsive," not only to the conflict on the ground in Somalia but also with the growing problem of piracy off the coast, one southern African minister said after the talks.

"They are coming to the point that the problem has to be resolved inland and not in the water."

As the talks dragged into the evening, Kadhafi proposed hosting a new summit around September 1, the date that he took power 40 years ago, the AU commissioner for peace and security Ramtane Lamamra said.