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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Wed Aug 25 2010 - 09:58:14 EDT
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/340946,troop-surge-feature.html
Somali insurgent onslaught linked to AU troop surge - Feature
Posted : Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:21:47 GMT
By : Michael Logan
Nairobi - A bloody offensive by Somali insurgents, which included a
suicide attack on a Mogadishu hotel Tuesday, may have been prompted by
a planned influx of African Union peacekeepers, analysts say.
At least 60 people have died since militant Islamist group al-Shabaab,
which claims links to the al-Qaeda network, launched an onslaught
against the weak Western-backed government on Monday.
Some 31 people, including six lawmakers, were killed Tuesday when
insurgents dressed as security forces opened fire in a hotel within a
government-controlled area in Mogadishu, before detonating suicide
vests.
The offensive began Monday, just hours after the AU announced an extra
2,000 troops recently pledged by East African grouping IGAD - which
will bolster the Ugandan and Burundian peacekeeping force to around
8,000 - had begun arriving.
EJ Hogendoorn, Horn of Africa Project Director with the International
Crisis Group, said the deployment could have triggered the offensive.
"I think what's happening is that al-Shabaab is trying to strike
before AMISOM (as the peacekeeping mission is known) reinforces its
positions," he told the German Press Agency dpa.
The AU did not reveal how many extra Ugandan troops have already been
deployed, or when the full contingent will be on the ground.
Ugandan army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Felix Kulayigye said the
influx of troops would go on as planned despite al-Shabaab's
offensive.
"We are following the original programme of IGAD, which decided that
we send more troops to Somalia," he told dpa. "These attacks will not
affect us. We are comfortable handling the situation."
Al-Shabaab's insurgency kicked off in early 2007, following Ethiopia's
US-backed invasion to oust the ruling Islamist regime.
President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's government is now penned into a
few enclaves in Mogadishu, protected by batteries of AU guns, while
the insurgents and their allies control much of south and central
Somalia.
The two sides are locked in a bloody stalemate, in which civilians
bombarded by stray shells have borne the brunt of the violence. Over
21,000 people, mainly civilians, have died in the insurgency.
However, the AU's Deputy Special Representative for Somalia, Wafula
Wamunyinyi, told journalists in the Kenyan capital Nairobi Monday he
believed a bolstered peacekeeping force could shift the balance of
power.
"With the new troops, we are hoping that we are going to expand
further and move them (the insurgents) out of Mogadishu," said
Wamunyinyi, adding that the next phase would be to gain control over
the rest of the Horn of Africa nation.
Uganda in particular is keen to send more soldiers to Somalia after
al-Shabaab bombed the Ugandan capital Kampala - its first attack on
foreign soil - in July, killing 76. The insurgents said they carried
out the bombing in retaliation for the actions of Ugandan peacekeepers
in Mogadishu.
Al-Shabaab's ranks have been bolstered by foreign fighters from
Afghanistan and Pakistan, among other countries. The AU estimates as
many as 2,000 foreign jihadists are based in Somalia, running training
camps and planning bomb attacks.
The insurgent group has certainly increased its emphasis on suicide
attacks, becoming increasingly bold with well-planned strikes.
As well as the bombings in Uganda and Tuesday's attack, a suicide
blast at a graduation ceremony in a Mogadishu hotel killed four
ministers in December.
Despite the insurgency appearing to gain momentum and the AU throwing
more soldiers at the intractable problem, few observers believe the
gun can bring peace to Somalia, which has been embroiled in chaos
since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
"I doubt the balance of power will change unless the Transitional
Federal Government and international community come up with a plan to
reach out politically to different local actors on the ground,"
Hogendoorn said, encapsulating a sentiment often expressed privately
by Western diplomats
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