http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/846785c4-09cb-11df-8b23-00144feabdc0.html
Financial Times January 25, 2010 EU troops to train Somali forces By Tony Barber in Brussels The European Union, increasingly concerned about the security risks from Somalia’s disintegration into a “failed state”, is to send a military mission to east Africa to train Somali forces battling an Islamist insurgency, EU foreign ministers decided on Monday. The mission will involve about 100 European troops, will be based in Uganda and will operate in close co-ordination with the African Union, the US and the United Nations as well as with Somalia’s transitional government. .... The EU has been slowly sucked into the Somali quagmire over the past two years because of an outbreak of piracy off the Horn of Africa in sea lanes that carry much European commerce to and from the Suez Canal. Since December 2008 the EU has deployed a naval mission off the Somali coast for the purpose of protecting WFP and merchant vessels from pirates who have seized dozens of cargo ships, chemical tankers, yachts and fishing boats for ransom. It is the first naval mission in the EU’s 53-year history and comes under the framework of the 27-nation bloc’s fledgling common security and defence policy. In a statement issued on Monday, the EU ministers said the new military training mission would encompass “the vetting of trainees, the monitoring and mentoring of the forces once back in Mogadishu and the funding and payment of the salaries of the soldiers”. Countries expected to take part in the mission include France, Spain and the UK. =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato Blog site: http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/ To subscribe, send an e-mail to: rwroz...@yahoo.com or stopnato-subscr...@yahoogroups.com Daily digest option available. ==============================
