Wednesday, November 13, 2013
A senior government official on Tuesday said that Ethiopian troops will
join the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) as part of the battle
against the al-Qaida-allied al-Shabaab insurgent group."Ethiopian troops will join Kenyan and Ugandan troops to make
AMISOM’s peace keeping operation more secure” Ethiopia’s ministry of
foreign affairs spokesperson, Ambassador Dina Mufti told Sudan Tribune.
The official said Ethiopia has already put forward the request to AMISOM and is hoping to join the mission soon.
Ethiopia’s
decision to join AMISOM comes one week after the East African nation
received a renewed terrorism threat from al-Shabaab.
In September
an armed group attacked a shopping mall in the Kenyan capital Nairobi
killing at least 67 people. Al-Shabaab killed 74 people watching the
football world cup in Kampala the capital of Uganda in retaliation for
their presence in Somalia with AMISOM.
The country’s security
services last Wednesday said that it has found concrete evidence that
al-Shabaab - allegedly backed by Eritrea - is preparing to carryout
terrorist attacks in the capital Addis Ababa and in other parts of the
country.
Following the threat, Ethiopia has put its security forces and police on high alert.
Mufti
said Ethiopia’s move to join AMISON was also as part of the renewed
joint efforts by regional countries to fight terrorism in the volatile
Horn of Africa region.
Ethiopian and Kenyan security chiefs have began consulting on ways of putting the joint operation to effect.
Currently,
an estimated 8,000 Ethiopian troops are independently fighting
al-Shabaab, a group which repeatedly vowed to attack Ethiopia in
retaliation to its military intervention in Somalia, which first began
in 2006 to help the weak Somalia government fight Islamist militants.