Egyptian military prepares for African Union deployment

Some of the Egyptian soldiers assigned to the African Union mission demonstrate a casualty evacuation technique. (Egyptian Ministry of Defence)

The Egyptian Ministry of Defence effectively confirmed it will deploy a force to Somalia when it released a video on 27 November showing soldiers it said were preparing to join an African Union mission it did not name.

The video showed Lieutenant General Abdel Mageed Saqr, minister of defence and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, inspecting soldiers assigned to the mission at a location that could be identified as the inspection ground next to the 2nd Mechanised Infantry Division's base east of Cairo.

The uniforms and badges of some of the soldiers identified them as members of the Thunderbolt Forces and Airborne Forces, which are elite light infantry units. Caiman mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) and Fahd armoured personnel carriers were also demonstrated.

The Somali Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Egypt had proposed to “contribute its forces to peacekeeping efforts in Somalia” in a statement released after the Eritrean, Egyptian, and Somali presidents held a summit in Asmara on 10 October.

The plan is for the current African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) to be converted into the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) next year, although this still needs to be approved by the United Nations Security Council.

The Somali Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement on 23 October saying that Mogadishu does not want Ethiopia, which has troops deployed with ATMIS, to contribute to AUSSOM. It cited Addis Ababa's “illegal agreement” with the separatist region of Somaliland, a reference to an agreement announced on 1 January under which Ethiopia will build a naval base in Somaliland in return for recognising it as an independent state.