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Monday, September 15, 2008
MOGADISHU (AFP) — An African Union peacekeeper was killed Monday in
a roadside bomb explosion in Mogadishu, the second member of the
contingent to be killed in the Somali capital in as many days, an AU
official told AFP."Our soldiers went to an observation post
outside our defence positions when an explosive device planted by the
roadside went off, killing one of our soldiers and wounding two
others," said Baridgye Bahuko, spokesman for the AU mission in Somalia.
"The
AU peacekeepers' vehicle was destroyed by a roadside bomb and I saw
several of them being retrieved from the wreckage, then they sealed off
the area," eyewitness Ibrahim Mohamed told AFP.
|
| A total of eight African Union (AU) peacekeepers have killed in Somalia since March 2007 |
The incident took
place in the southern Mogadishu neighbourhood of Afisiyone and came a
day after another Ugandan member of the AU force was killed in an
attack by suspected Islamist insurgents.
The latest death brings
to eight the total number of AU troops killed in Somalia since the
first Ugandan contingent was deployed in March 2007. The Ugandans were
reinforced by a Burundian contingent earlier this year.
Ethiopian
troops invaded Somalia in 2006 to rescue the embattled western-backed
transitional government and oust an Islamist militia that had briefly
taken control of large parts of the country.
Islamist armed
groups have since reverted to guerilla tactics and are carrying out
almost daily attacks against Ethiopian troops, Somali government forces
and AU peacekeepers.
SOURCE: AFP, September 15, 2008