London - Somalia's armed forces have not received "a
single bullet" despite the partial lifting of a United Nations arms
embargo because the East African country lacks funds, its defence minister said
on Wednesday.
Somalia's new leaders aim to train and equip a
professional army of around 28 000 soldiers within three years but are
hamstrung by a lack of cash, Abdihakim Fiqi said during a trip to London to
drum up donor support.
"The arms embargo was lifted almost two months ago
and we haven't received a single bullet or one single AK-47 or gun. Nothing.
Because of lack of resources," Fiqi told the Royal United Services
Institute defence think tank in London.
The Horn of Africa nation is only just emerging from two
decades of civil war, and is struggling to rebuild a country riven by clan
divisions and whose infrastructure and institutions are in tatters.
A newly appointed parliament last year elected a new
president, the first vote of its kind since the toppling of former military
dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
In recognition of the legitimacy of Somalia's new
leadership, the United Nations in March partially lifted an arms embargo on
Somalia, allowing it to buy light weapons.
Somali forces currently number in the low thousands, and
are a poorly equipped and fragmented mixture of state troops and militias
struggling to battle al Shabaab Islamist militants, who want to impose their
brand of Islamic law on Somalia.
Security stabilisation plan
"For the last four months our soldiers are just
sitting back not doing anything. Al-Shabaab are fighting them, engaging them,
attacking them. They are just in the defence position ... due to a lack of
weapons and ammunition," Fiqi said.
African Union peacekeepers have been largely responsible
for pushing al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab out of the capital Mogadishu and other
urban centres in the past two years, but the group is still able to launch
major attacks, including a suicide bombing on Sunday that killed at least eight
people.
Fiqi declined to give an estimate for the number
al-Shabaab fighters remaining, but said due to a lack of funding the group was
mired in "leadership wrangling", and was "increasingly
weakening, contained and losing ground every day".
However, al-Shabaab is highly mobile, a reason why
Somalia aims to build an army made up of agile light infantry units.
"Our national security stabilisation plan indicates
up to 28 000 soldiers within three years," Fiqi said, putting the cost of
raising such an army at about $160m.
The minister is part of a Somali delegation that includes
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, that attended a conference on Somalia in
London on Tuesday to drum up donor funding.
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