BREAKING NEWS

UN council approves increase in AU Somalia force

By REUTERS

FEBRUARY 22, 2012 19:46

UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council on Wednesday boosted by nearly one half an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, seeking to press home a military offensive against Islamist rebels in the Horn of Africa country.

A resolution increasing the AMISOM force to 17,731 from 12,000 troops and police passed the council unanimously on the eve of an international conference in London to discuss measures to tackle instability in Somalia and piracy off its shores.

AMISOM has until now consisted of Ugandan and Burundian troops. The new increase to a large extent is accounted for by bringing under its command Kenyan forces that entered Somalia independently last October to fight the al Shabaab rebels, blamed by Nairobi for attacks and kidnappings on Kenyan soil.

Other troops are expected to be brought in from Djibouti, diplomats said, to bolster AMISOM, which although not a UN force receives authorization and much of its funding from the United Nations.

The force, which first entered Somalia in 2007, has claimed a series of recent successes against al Shabaab's fighters who had seized much of the east African country's center and south. Last August, AMISOM wrested control of the capital, Mogadishu.

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