Uganda to ask for more troops

KAMPALA - African leaders gathering in Kampala - days after Somalia's al Shabaab carried out suicide attacks in the Ugandan capital - are expected this weekend to consider sending more troops to war-torn Mogadishu.

The venue for the African Union summit was picked long before the July 11 attacks that killed 76 people, but the unprecedented bombings were expected to inject renewed urgency in the continental body's approach to Somalia.

The al Qaeda-inspired group Shabaab, who claimed the attacks, the region's worst in 12 years, said they were in retaliation for Uganda's leading role in the AU's mission in Somalia.

But instead of being bullied into a pull-out, Uganda looked set to take advantage of the 53-member organisation's summit to muster support for a beefed-up deployment and more aggressive mandate.

Heads of state meeting from Sunday to Tuesday are expected to endorse a decision made earlier this month by the regional body inter-governmental authority on development to send an extra 2000 troops to Mogadishu.

While Uganda, which already provides more than half of the existing contingent, has called on its neighbours to chip in, Kampala looks set to contribute the bulk of the reinforcements.

"We are capable of providing the required force if other countries fail to do so," Ugandan army spokesperson Felix Kulayigye said last week in the aftermath of the attacks.