According to a top spokesman, the Ugandan military has dispatched an additional 750 troops to Somalia to shore up the floundering African Union effort to prop up the self-proclaimed government in Mogadishu.
A commander said the troops began arriving last week and will be setting up a series of small bases along the road between the presidential palace and the airport in the capital city. This would shore up the handful of city blocks in downtown Mogadishu that amount to virtually the entire territorial position of the force and its increasingly irrelevant backers at the Transitional National Government (TNG).
But no one seriously believes that the 750 troops will turn the tide of this war, and TNG President Sheikh Ahmed is already calling for yet more troops to “restore peace.” Far from making progress in the war it seems it is all the troops can accomplish to keep from losing the trivial territorial possessions (which seem to amount to little more than the palace, airport, and seaport) to the various militant factions in the nation.
But few seem eager to send troops in any large number, unless there is something in it for them. Uganda itself, which sent these troops mostly as a public relation move in the wake of the Kampala bombing, has raised the prospect of sending another 10,000 reservists, but only if the US sends them money to pay for it.