Ethiopia sends troops to secure Somali reconciliation meeting

July 13, 2007 (MOGADISHU) — A large number of Ethiopian troops reportedly arrived in Mogadishu on Thursday from Bali Doogle airport where they arrived to secure a Somali reconciliation meeting.

Somali Garoweonline website said the arrival of these troops can be related to the reconciliation conference scheduled to open in Mogadishu as mortars were targeted at many areas including the presidential palace and the venue for the reconciliation conference last night.

The gathering of more than 1,000 elders, ex-warlords and politicians has been postponed twice over security concerns, which have not diminished. Roadside blasts, suicide bombings and assassinations are now an almost daily fixture of life in the coastal capital.

Islamist insurgents regularly attack government troops, their Ethiopian military allies and African Union peacekeepers from Uganda in a their bid to restore the Islamic rule they briefly imposed last year.

There is no government official who has commented on the large number of troops who have arrived in the capital and who initially came from Baydhabo Bay Region

Since the end of last January, it was announced that Ethiopian troops who helped Somalia’s government drive out a radical Islamic militia began withdrawing from this Horn of Africa nation. But Ethiopian troops are still there.

(ST)