AU to boost troop numbers in Somalia

Category: World News

Date Added: 28 July 2010

BORIS BACHORZ

Kampala

AFRICAN Union (AU) leaders finishing a three-day summit in Kampala yesterday agreed to honour commitments to send thousands of extra troops to aid its military contingent fighting insurgents linked to al-Qaeda in Somalia, and agreed to allow pre-emptive strikes as part of new rules of engagement.

SA — which has been requested to send warships to prevent al Shabab from importing weapons via Somalia’s Kismayo port — said it would be ready to do “everything it is asked from it” by the AU.

More than 30 heads of state, including President Jacob Zuma, approved a request by an east African regional body to mobilise 2000 extra soldiers to the war-torn capital Mogadishu to meet its target of 8000.

However, the leaders were still grappling with whether to completely change the mandate of the AU Mission in Somalia (Amisom), currently tasked with protecting the fragile Somali government from the Islamist rebels.

“This summit has approved the requests made by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development,” Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin said.

The group earlier this month pledged to send the additional troops to boost Amisom’s force of 6000 Burundian and Ugandan soldiers to its intended full strength.

The force has been underfunded, and countries have been reluctant to send troops because of restrictions on their mandate.

The permanent secretary of Uganda’s foreign ministry, James Mugume, said the summit was yet to agree on whether to give the force a more aggressive mandate under chapter seven of the United Nations (UN) Charter.

“The decision about the mandate is still being taken, but I think there is a realisation that chapter seven is difficult,” Mr Mugume said.

“What we are hoping for is chapter six and a half. It involves an adjustment in the rules of engagement that allows us to act more robustly. A change to six and a half would still require consultations with the UN Security Council,” he said.

But Ugandan army spokesman Felix Kulayigye said Amisom could now launch pre-emptive strikes under new rules of engagement.

“Now the forces are free to attack in a pre-emptive manner,” Mr Kulayigye said. “If you are about to be attacked, you are mandated to attack first.”

Somalia’s hardline al-Shabab militia fighting to topple the western backed government of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed showed its new regional dimension when it claimed responsibility for the July 11 bombings in Kampala that killed 76 and injured scores watching the World Cup. The group, which is linked to al Qaeda, said the attack was to punish Uganda for its contribution to the Amisom force, which the insurgents blame for killing civilians in Mogadishu.

The Ethiopian foreign minister urged the immediate deployment of the additional forces. “We all think that Amisom must be reinforced immediately, along with the means of action of the Somali transitional government,” Mr Seyoum said.

Leaders at the Kampala summit acknowledged that military intervention alone would not resolve Somalia’s conflict, which has raged for nearly two decades.

“The priority must therefore be to reinforce the security forces, the police, and the civil and financial institutions of the transitional government,” Mr Seyoum said.

Al-Shabab, which has pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden, controls about 80% of Somalia, with the government confined to a few blocks in Mogadishu.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson supported the troop increase as a means of defeating the radical militia, which poses a regional threat. “There is no doubt there is a need for more troops,” he said. “The US is committed to support the additional troops as we have supported Burundi and Ugandan troops.”

AU Commission chief Jean Ping said earlier that Guinea was ready to send a battalion to Somalia and predicted that the mission could soon swell to 10000 soldiers

The bloc’s commissioner for peace and security, Ramtane Lamamra, said it was “a few short weeks” before the reinforcements arrive and render Amisom — which was deployed in March 2007 — ‘‘more robust”. Sapa-AFP

Source: Business Day