Uganda releases detained Somali minister (Roundup)

Oct 7, 2009, 12:04 GMT

Kampala - Ugandan authorities have released Somalia's state minister for defence after clearing him of involvement in terror attacks in insurgency-hit Somalia, a Ugandan army official said Wednesday.

Yusuf Mohamed Siad, a former insurgent who earlier this year defected to Somalia's embattled Western-backed government, was arrested in Kampala's Kisenyi slum Tuesday after leaving a mosque.

'He has been released after establishing that he is not a criminal,' Ugandan army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Felix Kulayigye told the German Press Agency dpa. 'He has been cleared.'

Kulayigye said that Siad - who was visiting family in Kisenyi, where many Somalis live - was arrested because of his insurgent past.

Uganda and Burundi provide almost 5,000 troops to the AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia, which has been embroiled in chaos since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

The latest chapter in the long conflict is a bloody insurgency, which kicked off in early 2007.

Islamist insurgent groups al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam have been pounding the government, which only controls small pockets of south and central Somalia, although the two militant groups recently began fighting each other in the port town of Kismayo.

The AU has also been targeted by the Islamists. A recent suicide bombing by al-Shabaab claimed the lives of 17 peacekeepers.