Addis Ababa, 30 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) – The African Union’s Peace and Security Department approved plans to train more peacekeepers serving in its mission in Somalia on maritime security and air defence capabilities to better protect war-ravaged Somalia.
Somali is the hotbed of hijacking of marine vessels and a long-time target of external Islamist jihadists, have recently suffered a spate of bombings, with the latest of such attack leading to the killing of three ministers at a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu.
African countries contributing troops to the African Union Peacekeeping Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) held a strategy meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where they agreed that the Mission still lacked basic elements such as air defence.
“The meeting observed that there exist operational limitations to the performance of AMISOM in the areas of maritime and air defence capabilities, and called for assistance in building the Mission’s capabilities in this respect,” an AU statement said Tuesday.
Djibouti, Somalia’s neighbour, is among the few countries in the Horn of Africa region to pledge peacekeepers to the overstretched AMISOM, which has been a target of attacks, planned by Islamic groups seeking to takeover full control of Somalia.
The Islamist elements have been staging their fights for the control of the Southern Port of Kismayu and recently edged closer to the Kenyan border, where the Islamist controlled fighters took control of a key border crossing point Southwards.
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The AU meeting, chaired by the Commissioner for Peace and Security, Ramtane Lamamra, explained that the continued inability of AMISOM to reach its authorised strength continues to be a serious challenge.
Lamamra added that the recruitment and training programme of Somali Security Forces should be given more impetus in order to be able to cope effectively with the security situation there.
The ministers and representatives of the troop contributing countries at the meeting, including Burundi, Uganda and Djibouti, also emphasized the need to adequately train, equip, sustain and retain Somali Security Forces in the current circumstances.
They proposed that a study of new requirements necessary for AMISOM to fulfil its objectives, including the added aspect of training of Somali Security Forces, be carried out.
Meanwhile, the African countries that have contributed troops and equipment to the AMISOM have been compensated for the equipment they contributed.
Source: Nigerian Compass
somalia conflict is one all most of the destroyed with community of somalia and their reputation somalia but conflict i not only shabaab or extremist in Islam but also the government its self is involved what happened in muqdisho in capital of somala and it around because the peace keepers its self are making the violence of the somalia are main contribution is peace keepers so if we are only need keep our the security of somalia is depended how somali people keep their country
Somalia is sad case that the West uses to cash-in, now some African states like Uganda are also start learning this trick, they were behind the sanction on Eritrea because they want to be seen as 'regional player' so the West can give them first prioty military and financial aid, little baboon looking bantus, they need to be stopped before they go too far.
The AU should not make the same mistakes as many western governemnts have made in their reckless interferences in countries. A military solution will not work in somalia as has been shown in the past and as has also been shown in afghanisatan. The AU members are looking after their own interests and are becoming much like NATO. Ethiopia seems to be the ocuntry spearheading this and kenya is also benefiting from chaos in somalis.