Eritrean Official Warns More Peacekeeping Troops in Somalia Will Lead to Chaos

Photo: AP

Supporters during a demonstration organized by the islamicist Al-Shabaab group fighting with the Somali government in Suqa Holaha neighborhood in Mogadishu, Somalia, 5 July 2010

A senior official with Eritrea’s government told VOA a decision by the Heads of State and Government of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional bloc to increase peacekeeping troop levels in Somalia, will plunge that country into chaos.
Information minister Ali Abdu said the main cause of the growing insecurity problem, as well as the refusal of insurgents to recognize Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, can be at
tributed to foreign interference or intervention.
“The external intervention, be it in the name of peacekeeping, be it in the name of humanitarian mission, be it in the name of combating terrorism, are the main cause of this destructive conflict in Somalia. Somalia remains today fragmented and the battleground of all kinds of conflict because of external intervention mainly from Ethiopia for its intermittent military invasion in Somalia,” he said.Read More