KDF to deploy 4,660 soldiers to join Amisom mission
Kenya will send 4,660 soldiers to join the force of Africa Mission in Somalia, the country’s Chief of Defence Forces, General Julius Karangi has said.
The Kenyan troops will be part of the 17,731 Amisom troops and will be under a Ugandan commander.
The commander will have two deputies, one from Kenya and the other from Burundi. These deputies will be in the rank of major general.
The decision was arrived at a meeting of military heads from Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Djibouti, said General Karangi.
Speaking on Monday at Nairobi’s County Hall, where he met Parliament’s Defence and Foreign Relations Committee, General Karangi added that each of the troops will be paid an additional monthly allowance of USD1,028 ( about Sh82,000) for the mission in Somalia.
Thus, the United Nations and the African Union, plus other donors of Amisom, will spend USD4.8 million (Sh400 million) to keep the Kenyan military motivated.
General Karangi further revealed that the weekly press briefings that the military held jointly with the Kenya police and the ministry of foreign affairs every Saturday –to brief the country on Operation Linda Nchi-- had been cancelled henceforth.
“We cannot continue to do that because we’re now under Amisom,” said General Karangi, who’s the first general to lead Kenya into serious combat in a foreign territory.
The new command structure will be based in Mogadishu and out of a staff of 85, Kenya will have 16. Sierra Leone too has promised to send its troops to beef up the peace-enforcement force in Somalia, General Karangi said.
“The Amisom mandate is not about peace-keeping. There’s no peace to be kept in Somalia. The mandate is peace enforcement,” he told MPs at Monday’s meeting.
The military chief said that Kenya’s pursuit of the Al Shabaab militants will not abate just because the Kenya Defence Forces have joined the Amisom.
“Our ability to deal with the enemy in Somalia is not diminished in any way. We’ll still pursue them on air, land and sea. We’ll be doing the same thing that Operation Linda Nchi has been doing, but at the expense of other entities,” said General Karangi.
He said the move to join the continental troops’ contingent was part of the KDF’s “exit strategy”.
“We worked very hard to achieve that and we’re glad we succeeded,” said General Karangi.
Kenya, he added, had managed to create a “fairly safe buffer” in Somalia.
The General declined to declare the number of Al Shabaab militants that had lost their lives in the operation.
“I wouldn’t want to mention the number here, because it will sound a bit morbid,” he added, but promised to reveal the full details at a closed-door meeting with MPs.
“We used to give the numbers of those militants killed, until Al shabaab used those numbers to turn against us.”
So far, 12 Kenyan soldiers have lost their lives in the Operation Linda Nchi which began on October 14, 2011.
That Al Shabaab had joined al Qaeda, is not something that worries KDF, the General noted, saying that the move of Somali militants to the global terrorist network was expected.
At the meeting with MPs, the General was expected to table classified maps and other operational details about the military incursion in Somalia.
