INTERVIEW- Ethiopia to pull out third of Somalia troops

By Barry Moody
Reuters
ADDIS ABABA, Jan 27 (Reuters) - A third of the Ethiopian troops who led a war to crush Islamist forces in Somalia late last month are expected to have withdrawn by Sunday, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said.

In an interview with Reuters on Saturday, Meles also revealed that up to five U.S. forensic experts entered Somalia to identify some of those killed in a lightning two-week war to oust the Islamists.

Meles did not say who the bodies were, but he had previously said forensic techniques were used to identify eight people killed in a U.S. air raid more than two weeks ago. Washington said they were al Qaeda-affiliated fighters.

U.S. officials have never publicly confirmed persistent reports that their ground forces have operated inside Somalia.

"We are reducing troop numbers by about a third ... that process should be completed today or tomorrow," Meles said.

He refused to say how many of his troops had been in the country during a war in which Ethiopian air power and armour swept aside Islamists who ruled southern Somalia for six months.

Security experts estimated before the conflict that Ethiopia had sent between 5,000 and 10,000 troops into Somalia to back forces of the weak transitional government.

Meles said he hoped to withdraw the rest of his troops "within weeks".

Asked if he was confident that could be done, Meles said: "Yes, because ... as far as our own mission is concerned it has been completed as far as supporting the transitional government."

He said Ethiopian troops would continue backing the government "as long as we can sustain it but we cannot sustain it indefinitely, obviously, and therefore we can only assist to the extent of our capabilities".

AFRICAN PEACEKEEPERS

Meles spoke before an African Union summit on Monday and Tuesday which is expected to discuss deploying almost 8,000 African peacekeeping troops after Ethiopia withdraws.

Without a strong military force, many residents and analysts fear the Horn of Africa country will slide back into the anarchy it has suffered for nearly 16 years.

In a sign of impatience with the pace of African Union efforts to raise peacekeepers, Meles said the AU was suggesting deploying its troops by early March, but added: "We see no reason why the first African Union troops could not be deployed significantly earlier, let's say by mid-February."

AU Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit has said that the first three battalions could be deployed in a matter of weeks if logistical and financial barriers could be overcome.

Uganda, Nigeria and Malawi have so far promised soldiers and others are mulling joining the force. Rwanda and South Africa have ruled it out.

In a draft resolution prepared on Saturday by foreign ministers working ahead of the AU summit, Meles' intervention was praised as having "created an unprecedented opportunity for lasting peace in the country".

Meles said the decisive element in pacifying Somalia would be reconciliation among its many clans, creation of viable police and military and the deployment of AU troops.

"If we can get all of these three together in time we should be home and dry."

'NO LONGER WITH US'

If this was not achieved, Meles said, "We will have to withdraw because we cannot sustain it financially."

Asked if he would withdraw even if the AU did not deploy peacekeepers, Meles said: "We would but we do not expect that to happen. We expect at least some of the AU troops to be deployed in time before the last phase of our withdrawal."

Meles said as far as he knew there had never been U.S. ground forces in Somalia but "at one stage there were U.S. technical people who were brought in to help in the identification of documents and dead bodies ... experts in genetic identification and so on".

Asked if the experts were from the U.S. military, Meles said: "I would not be surprised if in some fashion they were associated with the Pentagon but the expertise we requested was identification of personalities who were no longer with us."

He said the operation was carried out after the major combat phase of the war was over and his forces were "tracking down bits and pieces" of the Islamist forces who fled to the south of the country.