BRUSSELS — The European Union is to endorse next week a plan to train up to 2,000 security personnel from Somalia, as the EU broadens engagement in the crisis hit Horn of Africa country, officials said on Friday.
The plan would see up to 200 EU soldiers train Somali military and police in neighbouring Uganda, probably for a year, following a request from the interim government in Mogadishu to help build a 6,000-strong security force.
The decision, expected on Tuesday in Brussels at a meeting of EU foreign, defence and development ministers, would launch official planning for the mission, said the spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
"Once this is approved, which we expect is going to happen during the (EU) council then we will be launching the real planning," the spokeswoman, Cristina Gallach, told reporters.
"We will be exploring how we can support, in addition to what we do with piracy on the high seas, the transitional government," she said.
"We think that this is a very good contribution to the global approach that the European Union has in order to tackle the Somali problems and all of its impact," she said.
The training, which may need to be carried out in two or three phases over a year, will involve Somalis numbering "in the low thousands. Initially we might be talking about 1,000 and 2,000," Gallach said.
"Less than 200 trainers" from Europe will be needed, she said.
The EU is still struggling to build a police mission of around 400 staff in Afghanistan, but given this work will take place in Uganda away from security problems officials said the trainers could be found by year's end.
Off the coast of Somalia, the EU is currently running an anti-piracy mission in the waters of the Gulf of Aden, but senior officials have long conceded that the only real way to combat the problem is on the ground.
Somalia has been gripped by civil wars and insurgencies and bereft of stable government since the overthrow of president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
The capital Mogadishu has been ravaged by violence that worsened in May when the insurgents stepped up an offensive against the internationally-backed government of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
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