Kampala , December 11, 2006 – Uganda will not send a peacekeeping force to Somalia unless security improves and the risk of war in the Horn of Africa country diminishes, said a senior government official on Monday.

"We have decided that at this particular time, we should not go to Somalia," minister of state for foreign affairs Oryem Okello said in comments that appeared to row back from Kampala's previously stated position of willingness to go in.

"The situation has deteriorated rapidly - it risks all-out war," Okello added in a telephone interview.

Last week, the UN security council approved a plan by east Africa's regional body Igad to send peacekeepers to Somalia to bolster President Abdillahi Yusuf's interim government.

Of the two nations deemed suitable to send peacekeepers - Uganda and Sudan - only Uganda had agreed in principle to commit troops, setting aside a battalion of 700 to 800 soldiers.

Diplomats say politicians, however, are deeply divided over the plan.

Ugandan force mandated and ready to go

Okello's comments, which came after two days of fighting in Somalia between pro-government troops and rival Islamists, seemed to contradict those of the army and the state minister for defense, Ruth Nankabirwa.

She said last week the Ugandan force was mandated and ready to go as soon as parliament approved it.

The powerful Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC), which controls Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia, has warned foreign troops on Somali soil will be attacked as enemies.

They rejected the US-sponsored security council resolution, warning it would "add fuel to the fire" of a potential war with the Western-backed government.

"The Islamic Courts are still expanding. They're taking up combat positions," said Okello. "Our troops are not being trained for combat, they're being trained for peacekeeping."

Diplomats say the US is pressuring Uganda to take the mission because it wants a regional ally to fight the Islamists, who defeated US-backed warlords when they took Mogadishu in June after 15 years of anarchy in the capital.

Widespread fears

Okello said when the offer of troops was made in September, Uganda had assumed the Islamists would advance no further than the territories in southern Somalia they already control.

But he said intelligence reports indicated they wanted to expand into the self-declared enclave of Somaliland.

"It no longer looks like they want to stay put," he said.

But he added that Uganda might still commit troops at a later date, if the African Union (AU), which supports the Igad plan, can find other countries to contribute.

Somali government sources say they hope Nigeria might come on board and contribute troops too.

Despite widespread fears that a peacekeeping force rejected by the Islamists would be a magnet for foreign jihadists, the UN approved the plan with the explicit aim of propping up Yusuf's transitional government.

Diplomats say President Yoweri Museveni, a friend of Yusuf, is keenest on the deployment but many other Ugandan government officials regard it as a potential suicide mission.

Source: Reuters

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