Annan seeks US air support for AU force in Darfur

Mar 3, 2006 (UNITED NATIONS) — The United Nations is asking the United States and other nations with big militaries to provide tactical air support for an ill-equipped African Union peacekeeping force in Sudan’s Darfur region.

With the security situation deteriorating on the ground, the AU force will need more international support in the coming months, even if its mission eventually is to be taken over by a U.N. force, Annan wrote U.S. Ambassador John Bolton in a Feb. 23 letter seen by Reuters on Friday.

At the U.N. Security Council’s request, Annan has begun planning for a shift from an AU force to a larger and better equipped U.N. mission for the troubled area.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million driven from their homes there by three years of fighting between government-backed Arab militias and non-Arab rebels.

But Sudan has begun lobbying AU states to reject a changeover to a U.N. mission from the AU force, which numbers about 7,000 troops and is known as AMIS.

Under pressure from the Khartoum government, AU foreign ministers at the last minute put off for a week a planned Friday vote to invite the United Nations to take over.

Even if the shift is approved soon, Security Council members and U.N. planners say it could then take eight to nine months to assemble and deploy the new force.

In the interim, AMIS must get the international help it needs to keep functioning, Annan told Bolton.

“Given the continued and serious deterioration in the security situation in Darfur, the support to AMIS should perhaps include the provision of new and additional capabilities including close air support,” he said.

“I would be grateful if governments in a position to provide such capabilities at short notice could consider this possibility,” Annan said.

U.N. officials said Annan was referring to a need for combat helicopters and their crews. Although his letter did not directly ask the United States for the helicopters, Annan counts it among the countries able to provide them, they said.

Washington has declared the conflict in Darfur to be genocide and has pushed hard for rapid U.N. deployment there.

A resolution adopted by the U.S. Senate on Friday urged President George W. Bush to take swift action in Darfur.

Annan has repeatedly called on wealthy nations such as the United States to contribute more than just money to an eventual U.N. force in Darfur. But the Bush administration has yet to say what it could provide beyond help with the planning.

(Reuters)