Mogadishu: Forget leaving 4000 new African soldiers are on route.......

[General Duke]

African Union adds 4,000 troops to Somalia peace force

27 Jul 27, 2010 - 11:18:43 AM

 

KAMPALA, July 27 (Reuters) - The African Union (AU) will add 4,000 troops to its peace force in Somalia and is considering whether to let them battle Islamists who were behind suicide attacks in Uganda that killed 76 people.

 

AU officials at the group's summit on Tuesday said a cap of 8,100 on troop levels for the force, known as AMISOM, had been lifted and they were mulling whether to give it powers to combat militants, despite misgivings of some AU members.

 

Leaders at the meeting, convened in Kampala close to where the suicide bombers struck, sanctioned reinforcements for the currently deployed 6,200 AU peacekeepers who are barely managing to keep Somalia's besieged government in office.

 

"We are committed to deliver an additional four thousand troops ... From Guinea, we will have one battalion, from IGAD we will have 2,000 troops and Djibouti will send troops immediately," said AU commission chairman Jean Ping.

 

IGAD is a bloc of East African nations.

 

"There was a request to move the ceiling of (8,100 troops) up and many other countries are now ready to send troops. Changing the mandate (to allow AMISOM to attack al Shabaab) is still under consideration," Ping said at the summit's close.

 

Summit diplomats earlier told Reuters the meeting of more than 30 African heads of state might ask the United Nations, which oversees AU peacekeeping missions, to allow AMISOM to chase down al Shabaab Islamists after the Uganda attacks.

 

Troops from Uganda and Burundi make up AMISOM. Al Shabaab blamed what it called AMISOM attacks on civilians for its suicide bomb attacks on two Kampala bars packed with hundreds of people watching the World Cup final on July 11