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AU nations to boost Somalia force

23 July 2010 17:54 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Guinea and Djibouti are planning to send troops to bolster an African Union (AU) peacekeeping force charged with protecting the transitional government in Somalia, the AU has said, APA reports quoting â€œAl Jazeeraâ€.
The pledge was announced on Friday before an AU summit in Uganda, which is expected to be dominated by the issue of security in Somalia.
Kampala, Uganda’s capital, was hit by twin suicide attacks that killed at least 74 people on July 11.

The bombings, at a rugby club and a restaurant, were claimed by Somalia’s al-Shabab group, which is fighting to topple the Horn of Africa nation’s UN-backed government.
It said that the attacks were in response to the deaths of Somali civilians at the hands of AU peacekeepers.

The group, which the US says is allied to al-Qaeda, has warned of further violence in Uganda and Burundi unless they pull their troops out of Somalia.

’Full commitment’
If Guinea and Djibouti fulfill their pledges, it provide a major boost to the 6,000 soldiers from Uganda and Burundi.

"Guinea is preparing a battalion to be sent to Somalia immediately," Jean Ping, the AU’s commission chairman, told reporters in Kampala.

"Djibouti prepared a battalion six months ago. Guinea’s commanders are in Mogadishu preparing for the arrival of their troops.

"We have today a full commitment with Guinea for a battalion. Guinea is ready to immediately send troops."

Army officers from Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Zambia were visiting Somalia on Friday as they also considered contributing to the AU peacekeeping force.

East African regional bloc IGAD last month pledged to send another 2,000 troops, but it has not yet announced which countries will contribute peacekeepers.

AU diplomats told the Reuters news agency that Amisom’s mandate would be reviewed at the Kampala summit and it was likely the 8,000-strong cap on troop numbers for the force would be lifted.

’Collective approach’
Lieutenant-Colonel Felix Kulayigye, the spokesman for the Ugandan army, told Al Jazeera that the summit intends to take a "collective approach" to the security situation in Somalia.
"African countries have taken long to respond to this urgent matter after 19 years of instability in Somalia and we believe that, for the first time, the African Union has a common position that they should have resolved the Somali question yesterday rather than tomorrow," he said.
"If you’re an outsider you can afford to postpone [dealing with the Somali question] because it’s difficult, but ... we must [roll up] our sleeves and take a supportive approach [rather] than going with the solution of ’I know it all’."
Kulayigye said that the solution for Somalia was "both military and political".

Al-Shabab, along with a number of other anti-government groups, controls much of southern and central, as well as most of Mogadishu.

The transitional government, which has long promised to launch a major offensive against al-Shabab, controls only a few streets of the capital.

At least 21,000 civilians are believed to have been killed in the violence over the last years, while 1.5 million have been forced to flee their homes.