African leaders are pledging thousands of new troops for Somalia to fight al-Qaeda-linked militants responsible for the twin World Cup bombings that killed 76 people and the US says it will help bankroll the military campaign.
However, internal documents obtained by the Associated Press show that that African Union (AU) forces and Somali troops don’t trust one another and that Somalia’s government “lacks consistency, coherence and coordination,” raising questions about whether more AU troops can solve the Somali impasse.
African leaders and US officials called for stepped-up efforts in Somalia as an AU summit here concluded on Tuesday.
The summit opened only days after the July 11 bombings in Kampala, an attack that prompted Uganda’s president to call for Africa to band together against Somalia’s militants.
Al-Shabab, Somalia’s most-feared militant group, claimed responsibility for bombing two sites where people were watching the World Cup final game on television and said the blasts were in retaliation for civilian deaths caused by AU troops in Mogadishu. They also have vowed to attack Burundi, the other African country that has been providing troops to the AU.
At the summit, Africa’s leaders voted to immediately dispatch 2,000 more Ugandan and Burundian troops to the AU mission in Somalia, boosting levels from 6,000 to the maximum mandate of 8,000.
The AU has commitments of 4,000 troops — 2,000 from IGAD, a bloc of East African nations, and one battalion each from both Guinea and Djibouti, AU Commission chairperson Jean Ping said at the summit’s closing news conference.
The AU is considering a request to raise the ceiling number for the total number of troops, he said, without giving a figure for the rise.
The US’ top official for Africa, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson, said that with a stronger force the AU could defeat al-Shabab, which intelligence officials say has been bolstered by foreign fighters from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion