The US has said it will send aid to famine-hit areas of Somalia controlled by the Islamist group al-Shabab.

But US aid officials say assurances must be given that the insurgents will not interfere with its distribution.

The US considers al-Shabab a terrorist group and last year stopped aid to the large area of Somalia it controls.

The UN has declared a famine in two areas of southern Somalia as the region experiences the worst drought in more than half a century.

Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group which controls large swathes of south and central Somalia, had imposed a ban on foreign aid agencies in its territories in 2009, but has recently allowed limited access.

The deputy administrator of the US Agency for International Development, Donald Steinberg, said the aid must not benefit al-Shabab.

"What we need is assurances from the World Food Programme and from other agencies, the United Nations or other agencies, both public and in the non-governmental sector, who are willing to go into Somalia who will tell us affirmatively that they are not being taxed by al-Shabab, they are not being subjected to bribes from al-Shabab, that they can operate unfettered," Mr Steinberg told the BBC.

He said the goal was to save lives, "not to play a game of 'gotcha' with a UN agency or any other group that is brave enough to go in and provide that assistance".

BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut says this marks a considerable change in policy from Washington.

In April 2010 US President Barack Obama issued an executive order naming al-Shabab a terrorist organisation, meaning no US aid could go to areas under its control, our analyst adds.

'Dangerously inadequate'

An estimated 10 million people have been affected in East Africa by the worst drought in more than half a century. More than 166,000 desperate Somalis are estimated to have fled their country to neighbouring Kenya or Ethiopia.

The UN said the humanitarian situation in Somalia's southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle districts had deteriorated rapidly and declared them to be suffering a famine.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said new funds to help the country were desperately needed.

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