Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
Aweys Osman Yusuf
23 December 2006
Mogadishu — United States secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has met Ugandan foreign minister Sam Kutesa in Washington, has urged Uganda to play a key part in the East African peacekeeping operations supposed to intervene in Somalia to protect the beleaguered government based in the southern town of Baidoa.
U.S. government officials say they believe al-Qaeda elements have affective role in Islamic Courts Union leadership. Islamists deny they are related to terrorists.
Uganda was the first East African country that asserted its preparedness to send peacekeepers that would be under the control of Intergovernmental Authority on Development, IGAD, and the African Union to Somalia. Sending troops to an outside country should be approved by the Ugandan parliament.
On December 6, UN Security Council approved US backed draft resolution that calls on relaxing the arms embargo on Somalia.
The news came as fierce fighting still continues around the transitional government base of Baidoa between the Islamic Courts Union fighters and the Ethiopian backed government forces.
As both sides were using various types of heavy weapons, witnesses say a large number of civilian population was hit by stray bullets and mortar shells explosions.
Hundred thousands of people have fled their homes to Bur Hakaba and Mogadishu, as the fighting flared up again on Saturday morning around Idaale, some 70 km (45 miles) southwest of Baidoa, the only garrison town under the interim government control.
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