Somali insurgent onslaught linked to AU troop surge (News Feature)

By Michael Logan Aug 25, 2010, 11:22 GMT

Nairobi - A bloody offensive by Somali insurgents, which included a suicide attack on a Mogadishu hotel Tuesday, may have been prompted by a planned influx of African Union peacekeepers, analysts say.

At least 60 people have died since militant Islamist group al-Shabaab, which claims links to the al-Qaeda network, launched an onslaught against the weak Western-backed government on Monday.

Some 31 people, including six lawmakers, were killed Tuesday when insurgents dressed as security forces opened fire in a hotel within a government-controlled area in Mogadishu, before detonating suicide vests.

The offensive began Monday, just hours after the AU announced an extra 2,000 troops recently pledged by East African grouping IGAD - which will bolster the Ugandan and Burundian peacekeeping force to around 8,000 - had begun arriving.

EJ Hogendoorn, Horn of Africa Project Director with the International Crisis Group, said the deployment could have triggered the offensive.

'I think what's happening is that al-Shabaab is trying to strike before AMISOM (as the peacekeeping mission is known) reinforces its positions,' he told the German Press Agency dpa.

The AU did not reveal how many extra Ugandan troops have already been deployed, or when the full contingent will be on the ground.

Ugandan army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Felix Kulayigye said the influx of troops would go on as planned despite al-Shabaab's offensive.

'We are following the original programme of IGAD, which decided that we send more troops to Somalia,' he told dpa. 'These attacks will not affect us. We are comfortable handling the situation.'

Al-Shabaab's insurgency kicked off in early 2007, following Ethiopia's US-backed invasion to oust the ruling Islamist regime.

President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's government is now penned into a few enclaves in Mogadishu, protected by batteries of AU guns, while the insurgents and their allies control much of south and central Somalia.

The two sides are locked in a bloody stalemate, in which civilians bombarded by stray shells have borne the brunt of the violence. Over 21,000 people, mainly civilians, have died in the insurgency.

However, the AU's Deputy Special Representative for Somalia, Wafula Wamunyinyi, told journalists in the Kenyan capital Nairobi Monday he believed a bolstered peacekeeping force could shift the balance of power.

'With the new troops, we are hoping that we are going to expand further and move them (the insurgents) out of Mogadishu,' said Wamunyinyi, adding that the next phase would be to gain control over the rest of the Horn of Africa nation.

Uganda in particular is keen to send more soldiers to Somalia after al-Shabaab bombed the Ugandan capital Kampala - its first attack on foreign soil - in July, killing 76. The insurgents said they carried out the bombing in retaliation for the actions of Ugandan peacekeepers in Mogadishu.

Al-Shabaab's ranks have been bolstered by foreign fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan, among other countries. The AU estimates as many as 2,000 foreign jihadists are based in Somalia, running training camps and planning bomb attacks.

The insurgent group has certainly increased its emphasis on suicide attacks, becoming increasingly bold with well-planned strikes.

As well as the bombings in Uganda and Tuesday's attack, a suicide blast at a graduation ceremony in a Mogadishu hotel killed four ministers in December.

Despite the insurgency appearing to gain momentum and the AU throwing more soldiers at the intractable problem, few observers believe the gun can bring peace to Somalia, which has been embroiled in chaos since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

'I doubt the balance of power will change unless the Transitional Federal Government and international community come up with a plan to reach out politically to different local actors on the ground,' Hogendoorn said, encapsulating a sentiment often expressed privately by Western diplomats.