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EU slams Somali air raids
09/01/2007 22:13 - (SA)
Brussels - United States (US) air strikes on suspected al-Qaeda hideouts in Somalia will not improve the long-term stability of the volatile East African country, said the European Commission on Tuesday.
"Any incident of this kind is not helpful in the long term," said Amadeu Altafaj, spokesperson for EU Development Commissioner, Louis Michel.
The air raids on Monday marked the first evident US military intervention in Somalia since the early 1990s and targeted camps where suspects in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were said to be sheltering.
They were followed on Tuesday by further strikes, according to a Somali government official.
€15m for peace supporting activities
The raids came after Ethiopian and Somali troops last week routed Islamist fighters from their final stronghold in the southern port town of Kismayo, forcing them to flee into scrublands along the border with Kenya.
"For the security aspect of the conflict, the only thing that can bring security up to now is trying to have as quickly as possible the Ethiopian force withdrawing and an international force coming in place in Somalia to monitor the ceasefire, to monitor security," said Altafaj.
A peacekeeping mission "should be limited in time, and composed of African troops including contingents from Muslim countries", Michel wrote in an editorial in the Tuesday edition of British newspaper The Independent.
The cost of an African force in Somalia could reach $160m over six months, according to Ethiopia's ambassador to the country, Abdulkarin Farah.
The EU commission has put aside €15m from its fund for peace supporting activities in Africa for a mission in Somalia.
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