By Richard Lough
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Wafula Wamunyinyi said the Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers that make up the 7,200-strong AMISOM force were seizing new ground from insurgents daily, gradually pushing the frontline towards the city outskirts. "Our forces now have a presence across more than forty percent (of Mogadishu). We anticipate it should be more than fifty percent this month if we continue to make this progress," Wamunyinyi told reporters in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Wamunyinyi said he was referring to areas AMISOM considered under its control, where there was relative peace and residents could move freely, although militant incursions could not be ruled out.
Two Islamist militant groups have waged a three-year insurgency to topple the Western-backed interim government that experts say is plagued by internal rifts and corruption.
During a rebel offensive in late August against government positions, both government troops and the militants claimed to have won new ground.
But the peacekeepers say they have regained 11 new positions and the government says the rebel offensive drove a wedge between militant leaders over command structures and the role of foreign jihadists.
"They are at their weakest. If we had sufficient troop numbers we could move quickly," Wamunyinyi said.
On Wednesday, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said the U.N. Security Council was considering a proposal to raise more funding for an expanded peacekeeping mission in the almost lawless nation.
Uganda, which was hit by a twin suicide bomb attack carried out by al Shabaab in July, says it could raise the entire 20,000-strong force the AU says is needed to pacify Somalia.
AU peacekeepers and government soldiers clashed with rebels for a sixth straight day in Mogadishu on Thursday.
Ali Muse, an ambulance service worker, said more than 40 people had died and hundreds of families uprooted from their homes in the latest bout of fighting.
The European Union's foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said the EU, the biggest donor to Somalia for development and reconstruction, would continue to support Somalia, including the semi-autonomous Puntland and break-away enclave of Somaliland.
"The international community must make every effort to assist Somalia in re-establishing peace, security and rule of law and to create the conditions for economic growth," she told a news conference in Mauritius. (Additional reporting by Jean Paul Arouff in Port Louis; Editing by Diana Abdallah).
Source: Reuters