News

AU agrees to send extra troops to fight insurgents in Somalia

July 28, 2010 Edition 1

KAMPALA: AU leaders wrapping up a three-day summit yesterday agreed to send thousands of extra troops to reinforce its military contingent battling al-Qaeda-linked insurgents in Somalia.

More than 30 heads of state|approved a request by an east African regional body to send 2 000 extra soldiers to the war-torn capital Mogadishu.

But the leaders were still grappling with whether to change the rules of engagement of the AU Mission in Somalia (Amisom) tasked with protecting the Somali government from Islamist rebels.

"This summit just approved the requests made by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development," said Ethiopia's Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin.

Earlier this month the development body pledged to send the additional troops to boost Amisom's current force of 6 000 Burundian and Ugandan soldiers to its full strength. The summit was yet to agree on whether to give the force a more aggressive mandate.

"We are hoping for an adjustment in the rules of engagement (for) us to act more robustly. But it would still require consultations with the UN Security Council," said secretary of Uganda's foreign ministry James Mugume.

Somalia's al-Shabaab militia fighting to topple the Western-backed government of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed claimed the July 11 bombings in Kampala that killed 76 people "to punish Uganda" for being part of the Amisom force".

South Africa - asked to send warships to prevent al-Shabaab from importing weapons via Somalia - said it would be ready to do "everything asked from it" by the AU. - Sapa-AFP