AU to boost troops to Somalia
2010-07-27 10:29
Kampala - Leaders of the AU agreed at a summit on Monday to reinforce the peacekeeping mission in Somalia to counter Shebab insurgents, said Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin.
"This summit has just approved the requests made by the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (Igad)," a six-nation east African grouping, which had asked for 2 000 extra troops, said.
They would reinforce the 600 Ugandan and Burundian soldiers already in Mogadishu for the AU.
"The summit has approved calls for reinforcing the budget of Amisom (the AU mission in Somalia) and its equipment," he added.
The Shebab, an Islamist extremist group that controls most of central and western, Somalia, has claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks in Uganda's capital Kampala on July 11. They killed 76 people gathered to watch telecasts of the Soccer World Cup final.
Urgency
It has said the aim of the attacks was to force the withdrawal of AU troops who have been helping to sustain Somalia's transitional government, whose authority is limited only to a few districts of the capital Mogadishu.
"We are now at a stage in which all Africans understand the urgency of the situation," Seyoum said.
"We all think that Amisom must be reinforced immediately, along with the means of action of the Somali transitional government."
The AU summit, which formally ends on Tuesday, acknowledged the "whatever reinforcement of the military force there is, it would not be able to resolve by itself the Somali problem overall", Seyoum said.
"The priority must therefore be to reinforce the security forces, the police, and the civil and financial institutions of the transitional government," he said.