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U.S. Appeals for Speedy Deployment of African Peacekeepers to Somalia

The Ethiopian Herald (Addis Ababa)
NEWS
January 13, 2007
Posted to the web January 13, 2007

By ENA
Addis Ababa
The United States appealed yesterday for a speedy deployment of African
peacekeepers in Somalia to prevent a "security vacuum" that could spawn fresh
anarchy after a war to oust extremist militants, Reuters reported.
"Deploying an African stabilization force into Somalia quickly is vitally
important to support efforts to achieve stability," the report quoted Michael
Ranneberger, U.S. Ambassador for Kenya and Somalia, as saying in a newspaper
opinion piece.
Uganda has said it is ready to provide the first battalion.
"We welcome the Ugandan commitment to send forces and we are urging other
African countries to do so as well...," Ambassador Ranneberger said, adding,
the deployment "will enable the rapid withdrawal of Ethiopian forces without
creating a security vacuum."
The African Union and the east African body IGAD have expressed willingness in
principle to send more than 8,000 troops into Somalia.
Washington believes three suspects in the 1998 and 2002 bomb attacks in east
Africa - Comorian Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Sudanese Abu Talha al-Sudani and
Kenyan Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan - have been hiding among fleeing Somali
extremists.
Kenyan authorities have arrested the wives and three children of two of those
suspects, a Kenyan counter-terrorism source told Reuters Thursday.
Mohammed and Nabhan's wives and children were caught trying to cross into Kenya
from Ras Kamboni, on Somalia's southern tip, long thought by Western and east
African intelligence agencies to be the site of an extremist training camp.


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