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US steps up training for African force in Somalia
(Sh.M.Network)- At a training camp in Uganda, a dozen soldiers crouch, weapons raised as they make their way down a dirt road between shipping containers set up to look like buildings in the Somali capital.

Standing by, observing the Ugandan troops at work, is aU.S.marine, Major Mark Haley.

"Here is where we are going to teach urban warfare, how to fight building to building," Haley said as the Ugandans moved between containers scrawled with graffiti reading "City of Death" and "Hell Zone".

The model of the Somali capital, or "Little Mogadishu" as it is known, was built by American military trainers to prepare the Ugandan soldiers to take part in the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
mission propping up the Western-backed government in Mogadishu.

After al Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab
... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban...
rebels pulled out of the capital last year, theUnited Stateshas stepped up efforts to train Ugandan soldiers who will be part of the push by AMISOM to take more territory outside the capital.

TheUnited Statesand other Western powers have been backing efforts to crush al-Shabaab as they worry Somalia has become a safe haven for Islamist hard boyz seeking to wreak havoc in the region and further afield.

Washington helps to fund the AMISOM force, provides assistance to the transitional institutions inSomaliaand has carried out air strikes within the Horn of Africa nation to kill high-profile al Qaeda and al-Shabaab suspects.

However,
there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened...
the United States is reluctant to put boots on the ground ever since its humiliating retreat from Somalia following the October 1993 "Blackhawk Down" debacle in which 18 U.S. servicemen and well over a thousand Somalis died.

Helped by AMISOM, the transitional government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed now controls most of Mogadishu for the first time since dictator Siad Barre was tossed in 1991.

But Ahmed's government has little control over the rest of the country, where al-Shabaab, clan-based militias and warlords control chunks of territory. Æthiopian and Kenyan troops are also battling al-Shabaab inside Somalia.
Posted by: Fred 2012-05-03
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=343919