Bartamaha (Nairobi):- African leaders are calling for the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers to Somalia in a bid to end the chaos that has engulfed the lawless country for nearly two decades.

But while the U.N. has agreed in principle, a deadline has yet to be set and many nations are wary of deploying troops to the anarchic country.

Moreover, some experts argue the deployment of a major U.N. force is unlikely and say the problem will be left to the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) — an East African organization comprising seven nations.

Somalia is home to the radical al-Shabab movement—”the youth” in Arabic—which controls a vast swath of the country’s south and is believed to boast around 7,000 fighters, according to Agence France-Presse.

The group, which supposedly has ties to Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for a bomb attack Sunday against civilians in Kampala, the capital of neighboring Uganda.

More than 70 people were killed when twin blasts rocked a restaurant and an open area of plastic chairs in front of a big-screen TV where spectators were watching the final minutes of the World Cup. Scores more were injured in the attack.

The attack was believed to be retaliation for the presence of Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia, who serve as the main contingent of an AU force numbering more than 6,000.

Some analysts said the bombing was intended to send a message to all nations considering sending forces to the war ravaged country.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has vowed revenge for the attack and called for the deployment of up to 20,000 AU troops in a bid to “crush” al-Shabab, but added he wanted a change in AU rules of engagement to allow troops to go on the offensive.

Somalia’s transitional government controls only one area of the country’s capital, Mogadishu, despite the presence of an AU peacekeeping force deployed to prop up the beleaguered body.

The United States is unlikely to lend troops to help quell lawless Somalia, much less lead an international coalition to do so.

At the height of U.S. involvement in a peacekeeping mission in 1993, the corpses of U.S. soldiers were stripped naked and dragged through the streets of Mogadishu — the so-called “Black Hawk Down” incident depicted in a 2001 film.

Indeed, U.S. State department officials have in recent months emphasized that there are no plans to “Americanize” the conflict.

While the United States is providing Somali authorities with some degree of support in a bid to prevent the re-emergence of a government bent on attacking U.S. citizens and interests, Washington is refraining from too much involvement in the embattled country.

David Shinn, the former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and now a professor at George Washington University, contended that a U.N. force would prompt al-Shabab to scatter and simply wait for peace keepers to run out of funds and leave.

Moreover, the group controls around 50 per cent of the war-torn country, and U.N. forces would be unable to control such a vast swath of territory — at its peak, not even the 25,000-strong U.S. force of early the 1990s could control that much land, analysts said.

Shinn foresees no return of U.S. troops, but said the recent Uganda attack will emphasize that the threat of al-Shabab has now gone regional.

Mark Schroeder, director of Africa analysis at global intelligence company Stratfor, said the deployment of U.N. troops is unlikely, at least for now.

The problem is in the hands of the Africans and the matter will be foremost on the agenda of the upcoming African Union summit, he said.

And expect the fight to go into extra rounds — even if the AU heeds Museveni’s calls to beef up its forces in Somalia, the mission could still continue for years, he said.

Al-Shabab, well aware of its own strengths and weaknesses, tends not to fight large-scale pitched battles and instead opts for hit-and-run tactics, attacking and then melting away into safe houses, he said.

By contrast, AU forces are better in conventional force-on-force battles, he said.

Schroeder contended that the political will exists to give AU forces the mandate to go on the offensive, another topic likely to come up at the AU summit.

If the AU does not back the idea, it could still gain traction in sideline conversations among IGAD members, he said.

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Source:-Xinhua.

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