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Obama investing in Somalia govt survival
Amisom troops ride from their base to Mogadishu. Al Shabaab forces targeted by the recent US attack hit back mid this month, killing 21 Amisom in a suicide bombing carried out with stolen United Nations vehicles. Photo/FILE
Posted Monday, September 28 2009 at 00:00
“That lone ranger behaviour has often not succeeded in many places,” Mr Wetangula said.
The Al Shabaab insurgent force targeted in the US attack made good on a vow of retaliation.
The Islamist group killed 21 members of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (Amisom) in a September 17 suicide bombing in Mogadishu carried out with stolen United Nations vehicles.
In addition to taking direct military action against Shabaab, the Obama administration is increasing weapons shipments and financial support to the TFG, as well as training Somali forces at sites in Djibouti and, possibly, in Kenya, too.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Nairobi recently after holding talks with TFG head Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed that she and President Obama “want to expand and extend our support” for the Somalia government.
American officials subsequently indicated that this would involve a doubling of the 40 tonnes of weapons and ammunition that the United States has already supplied the TFG this year.
The US is also giving the TFG cash to buy weapons.
Recently, for example, $1.2 million was handed over to Somali leaders in “a brown paper bag,” according to an account published on the website of Washington-based Foreign Policy magazine.
The money had been flown to Mogadishu from Nairobi, the magazine said, citing letters sent to the United Nations Security Council by a top diplomat at the American UN mission in New York.
Alejandro Wolff, deputy permanent US representative to the United Nations, wrote the letter to request a Security Council exemption from the UN’s 17-year-long arms embargo on Somalia.
The council subsequently agreed that the US arms shipments could proceed.
The United States is also the principal underwriter of Amisom, which currently consists of about 5,000 Ugandan and Burundian troops.
Amisom is seen as the main bulwark against the overthrow of the TFG by Al Shabaab, which is said to be linked to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qa’ida network.
Washington has contributed about $135 million to Amisom since its deployment in 2007.
Ugandan forces, which account for most of the Amison troops, may soon go on the offensive in Somalia.
There are plans for the Ugandans to invade Kismayo, a port town in southern Somalia controlled by a Al Shabaab-allied group, The New York Times reported last week.
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