From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue Mar 30 2010 - 15:35:23 EST
Kenya vetoes Somali wish for troops in Mogadishu
MALKHADIR M. MUHUMED
The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 30, 2010; 12:46 PM
NAIROBI, Kenya -- Somalia's president wants thousands of troops trained in
Kenya to be deployed to Mogadishu for an upcoming offensive against Islamist
militants, but Kenya has denied the request - yet another complication for a
military campaign that has already been delayed several times, officials
said Tuesday.
The fact that Kenya could veto Somali wishes for the deployment of its own
troops underscores that the Kenyan government wields power in the
neighboring country, which has a weak, U.N.-backed government.
In a March 21 letter that The Associated Press obtained a copy of, Somali
President Sharif Sheik Ahmed asked Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki for Kenya's
support for a plan to transfer control of 2,500 Somali troops trained in
Kenya over the last several months to the current defense minister.
That would mean the troops would be moved from the Somali-Kenya border to
the Somali capital, Mogadishu, large parts of which are controlled by
al-Shabab, a militant group linked to al-Qaida.
Kenya's president rejected the plan based on fears that if the troops are
sent to Mogadishu, Kenya's porous frontier with Somalia would be vulnerable
to cross-border incursions, said a Somali government official who spoke on
condition he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua declined to comment.
"Kibaki respects Somalia's president and his government, but when it comes
to national security, Kenya's interest comes first," said Abdullahi Hassan,
a political analyst and lecturer at Nairobi's Kenyatta University.
It was not known if the issue would cause further delays to an offensive
aimed at restoring Somali government control to large parts of Somalia and
hitting a radical movement that has imposed harsh justice, including
stonings and amputations, and stoked terrorism fears in the Horn of Africa
and beyond. The offensive has been pushed back repeatedly, in part because
of a lack of military resources.
Kenya mediated a two-year peace process that led to the formation of
Somalia's fragile government and hosts hundreds of thousands of Somali
refugees. Leaders of Somalia's government have regularly consulted with
their Kenyan counterparts. Some of the troops trained in Kenya were rumored
to be Kenyan nationals of Somali origin.
"The whole training exercise was a Kenyan-led initiative that involved
elements within the Somali government. It was part of Kenya's overall
military containment strategy against al-Shabab and it does not want to lose
control of that process despite its support for the Somali government," said
Rashid Abdi of the International Crisis Group.
For more than five months, Kenya has been training more than 2,500 Somali
troops on its soil. The initial plan was for them to be deployed to the
border to eliminate threats posed by al-Shabab, said clan elder Sheik Ali
Gure, who helped recruit the troops from three Somali regions near Kenya.
Al-Shabab controls large swaths of southern and central Somalia.
A U.N. Monitoring Group report this month found that the Somali military is
dominated by a command structure based on clan loyalties. The dustup between
Kenya and Somalia over troop deployment underscores those clan arrangements.
Gure warned that if the Kenyan-trained troops were transferred to Mogadishu,
Somali clans along the border could withdraw their support for the Somali
government. The clans want the troops to stay in their regions to take on
al-Shabab there.
Kenya has a large Somali population that inhabits the northeastern part of
the country, and has over the years used local clans who straddle
territories between the two countries to intervene when rebels groups try to
cross the border.
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