|
Addis
Ababa, January 09, 2010 – The African Union is urging the United Nations
to boost its support for Somalia's fragile government in view of the
rise of terrorist activity in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian
peninsula. AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping calls the overall security
situation in the Horn of Africa nation "unstable, volatile and
challenging'.
In a report to the AU Peace and Security Council Friday, Ping notes
several tragic security breakdowns in the past few months. The most
recent was a suicide attack December 3 on a medical school graduation in
Mogadishu that killed 25, including three government ministers. Another
suicide attack in September on the headquarters of the AU peacekeeping
mission, AMISOM, killed 20 people, mostly peacekeepers, including the
deputy force commander.
Acting on Ping's recommendation, the Council extended AMISOM's mandate
for another 12 months. The U.N. Security Council approved $210 million
to fund the 5,200 AMISOM peacekeepers for the past seven months. But as
the Council meets next week to review AMISOM funding levels, AU Peace
and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra is calling for Somalia to be
seen not just as a breeding ground for terrorists, but as part of a
region dotted with troubled states such as Eritrea and Yemen.
"We look forward to more bold decisions within the UN Security Council
so that engagement of the international community would be commensurate
with the challenges. These are not limited to local challenges, they go
beyond, to include piracy, international terrorism, and these are of a
global nature," said Lamamra.
U.N. Special Representative to Somalia Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah says
several recent events have highlighted the Horn of Africa’s growing
significance as a hub in the global terror network.
"It is today becoming...a global crisis, and the latest developments in
Mogadishu with killing of students by a Somali coming from Denmark, or
an attempt against a journalist in Denmark, and before that in Kenya is
showing that Somalia is a global crisis," said Ould-Abdallah. "Note the
importance British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has attached to Somalia,
linking it clearly to developments coming from Afghanistan or Yemen," he
added.
The latest AU report notes security in Somalia is complicated by a fight
between two rival insurgent groups for control of a lucrative port city.
Both groups, al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam are said to have links with
al-Qaida.
Earlier this week, it was reported that the Nigerian man accused of
trying to detonate a bomb on a Detroit-bound airliner Christmas Day had
met a radical U.S. Muslim cleric in Yemen after being recruited by
al-Qaida in London.
Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, is 250 kilometers from the
northern coast of Somalia across the Gulf of Aden, the busy waterway
that has been the scene of hijackings by Somali pirates.
Source: Voice of America, January 08, 2010
|
|
