Somali Rivals Jointly Call for UN Peacekeepers

Somalia’s interim government and a moderate opposition alliance have called for the rapid deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission to help stabilize their war-wracked country. In a joint communiqué signed Monday in Djibouti, the government and the opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) called for the UN to send troops to replace an ill-equipped African Union peacekeeping force, which has been unable to control an Iraq-style Islamist insurgency seeking to topple the country’s Ethiopian-backed government. The opposition leaders also want Ethiopia to withdraw its forces from Somalia.[PE]