Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
Abdinasir Moh-Guled
13 October 2008
Mogadishu — An African Union peacekeeper from Uganda has injured in an attack in the Somali capital, Mogadishu on Monday- the second to be inflicted in as many days.
The peacekeeper was injured in the attack, in which a roadside bomb hidden roadside hit a group of soldiers at KM4 area in Mogadishu, an AU spokesman said.
"One of our soldiers injured when the bomb went as our soldiers were nearby" AMISOM spokesman Brigye Bohoku said.
Some 1,800 Ugandan troops form the bulk of the AU forces in Somalia, helping to guard key buildings and the Mogadishu port, where food aid is unloaded.
Al-Shabab is the strongest and best organised group among the insurgents.
Over the weekend, the group threatened to stop planes using Mogadishu's main airport as of Tuesday.
The group described the airport, which is used for official and commercial flights, as a tool of Ethiopia's "occupation" of Somalia.
But Mr Bahoku said any such move would hurt Somali civilians, including those who needed medicine or needed to leave because of illness.
Somalia has been wracked by conflict since 1991, when former President Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted.
In December 2006, Ethiopian troops helped topple Islamist forces who had taken control of much of southern Somalia earlier that year.
The Islamists then launched an insurgency against Somalia's transitional government.
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