African Union to send more troops to Somalia

The African Union will soon send more peacekeepers to protect the government of war-ravaged Somalia, a spokesman said, but he did not say how many would be deployed.

The Somali government had asked the AU to nearly double its current deployment of troops to the maximum 8,000 allowed by an agreement struck in 2007, Nicolas Bwakira, AU envoy for Somalia, told The Associated Press Friday.

AU members have previously been unwilling to send troops because of the high level of violence by Islamist insurgents against Somali and Ethiopian forces backing the government.

Bwakira did not say which countries would send troops nor how many.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since clan-based militias overthrew a socialist dictator in 1991.

The AU has been in the country since March 2007, and last weekend the number of soldiers reached 4,000 for the first time. Bwakira said the organization was planning to put in more troops.

"We are doing it now. We will send more troops to Somalia soon," he said.

The AU is seeking to put more troops into the country amid concerns that the insurgents will make further gains against a weak government that controls only small pockets of territory.

The Islamists, along with powerful clan elders and clerics, have called for the AU troops to leave the country. Last month a suicide attack killed 11 Burundian peacekeepers and injured 15 others.

The country's new president, former Islamist fighter Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, has not commented publicly on the issue of increasing the number of foreign troops since he took power but has previously opposed the presence of foreign troops on Somali soil. On Saturday, he said his "government needs help until it can stand by itself."

Deployment of more AU forces could hamper Ahmed's efforts to draw his former Islamist allies into a U.N.-sponsored peace process. So far they are still fighting the government.

The previous administration fell partly due to popular anger against the presence of Ethiopian troops who left in January 2009 after two bloody years. After they left, parliament elected Ahmed as the country's new president.

The Somali president is in a delicate position, said Rashid Abdi, a Somali expert at the International Crisis Group. "If (the president) comes out and openly calls for the increase of peacekeepers he will immediately collide with the powerful traditional elders and the clerics," Abdi said. This would be a propaganda coup for the insurgents.

The AU force guards key government institutions, like the capital's main airport, seaport and the presidential palace. They also protect top government officials and train national security forces.

The U.S. State Department says some leaders of the insurgency have links to al-Qaida. Western governments have long feared the failed state would become a magnet for Islamic terrorists and last week Osama Bin Laden issued a message calling on Somalis to overthrow their government and denouncing the president as an "infidel."

Source: The Associated Press