The UN en­voy to So­ma­lia warned Tues­day that al-Shabab mil­i­tants are ex­pected to do every­thing they can to de­rail elec­tions next year and urged mil­i­tary forces to pre­pare to re­spond to any sign the Is­lamist group is ben­e­fit­ing from its links to ex­trem­ist groups in nearby Yemen.

Nicholas Kay told the UN Se­cu­rity Coun­cil that re­new­ing the joint African Union-So­mali of­fen­sive against al-Shabab “is an ur­gent pri­or­ity.”

Am­bas­sador Ma­man Sidikou, the AU spe­cial rep­re­sen­ta­tive to So­ma­lia, de­scribed the se­cu­rity sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try as one “with an el­e­vated ter­ror­ism threat.

“We will be rein­vig­o­rat­ing op­er­a­tions against al-Shabab,” he as­sured coun­cil mem­bers, adding with­out elab­o­rat­ing that “there will soon be a mas­sive op­er­a­tion in those places where we are all con­cerned about.”

Kay and Sidikou spoke by video­con­fer­ence from Ad­dis Ababa, Ethiopia where they ad­dressed the AU Peace and Se­cu­rity Coun­cil on Mon­day.

So­ma­lia has been try­ing to re­build af­ter es­tab­lish­ing its first func­tion­ing cen­tral gov­ern­ment since 1991, when war­lords over­threw a long­time dic­ta­tor and turned on each other, plung­ing the im­pov­er­ished na­tion into chaos. The coun­try’s weak gov­ern­ment is be­ing sup­ported by AU and So­mali troops against the al-Shabab in­sur­gency.

Sec­re­tary-Gen­eral Ban Ki-moon warned in a new re­port that the cri­sis in Yemen could open a cor­ri­dor for ji­hadist move­ments through So­ma­lia, which is lo­cated just across the Gulf of Aden.

Kay said al-Shabab poses a threat to the wider re­gion, point­ing to the mas­sacre of 147 stu­dents at Garissa Uni­ver­sity Col­lege in neigh­bour­ing Kenya in April.

“We need to mon­i­tor closely and be able to re­spond to any sign that al-Shabab is ben­e­fit­ing from their links to ex­trem­ist groups in Yemen,” he said.

Kay ex­pressed hopes that the com­ing weeks will see even closer counter-ter­ror­ism co-op­er­a­tion among the 193 UN mem­ber states, in­clud­ing mea­sures to pre­vent and counter vi­o­lent ex­trem­ism.

Ban and Kay stressed the im­por­tance of in­ter­na­tional sup­port for the joint mil­i­tary cam­paign by the AU force, known as AMI­SOM, and the So­mali na­tional army.

Sidikou said a joint AU-UN mis­sion last month to as­sess progress to­ward meet­ing Se­cu­rity Coun­cil bench­marks that would lead to the United Na­tions tak­ing over peace­keep­ing du­ties in So­ma­lia found that progress is be­ing made at dif­fer­ent speeds to meet the tar­gets.

But he said “the sit­u­a­tion in So­ma­lia as a whole is not con­ducive for the de­ploy­ment of a UN peace­keep­ing op­er­a­tion un­til the end of 2016 at the ear­li­est.”