AU peacekeepers gain ground in Mogadishu

  1. Posted on Friday 8 October 2010 - 10:50
    Muhyadin
    Muhyadin Ahmed Roble, AfricaNews reporter in Nairobi, Kenya
    The African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia are now controlling more than 40% of the capital Mogadishu, AU official said on Thursday.
    SOMALIA- AU peacekeepers in somalia starts geting allowances
    The AU envoy to Somalia, Wafula Wamunyinyi, said its troops had seized new bases from islamist insurgents in Mogadishu.

    "Our forces now have in control of more than forty percent of Mogadishu. We expect it should be more than fifty percent this month if we continue to make this progress," Wamunyinyi told reporters in Nairobi.

    The peacekeeping force says they have took 11 new positions as reports saying increasing disagreement in the ranks of Al-Shabaab, the main rebel and Al-Qaeda linked group.

    "They are at their weakest. If we had sufficient troop numbers we could move quickly," Wamunyinyi said.

    The AU has appealed to the international community for more funds to increase the force to 20,000. AU’s members are to consider sending troops to Somalia, where 7,200-strong force from Ugandan and Burundian troops are facing against Islamist fighters.

    Two Islamist rebels have leaded a three year old rebellion to overthrow the UN-recognized government led by former islamist leader Sharif Shiekh Ahmed.

    However, South Africa which was hoping to contribute AU’s mission declined on Thursday to send peacekeepers into Somalia.

    "The answer to Somalia is a simple 'no'. The South African National Defence Force will not be deployed in Somalia," South Africa Defence secretary Mpumi Mpofu told reporters in Cape Town.

    "So we don't have an instruction to go to Somalia right now from the commander in chief or anybody."

    She said there is still the possibility of South African deploying ships as part of a Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) force to stop Somali pirates.

    "There is a lot of work going on around monitoring that situation in order to be able to assess the point at which piracy starts threatening the region," Mpofu said.

    South Africa is worrying about the ongoing violence in the horn of Africa nation, where Islamist rebels are trying to settle.

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