| BAIDOA (Somalia), Thursday A group of Ugandan army officers arrived in Somalia today, the vanguard of an African Union force being formed to help the interim government tighten its tenuous grip on the country. The uniformed Ugandans disembarked from a cargo plane which landed at the government stronghold of Baidoa early in the morning, a customs officer told Reuters. “Thirty-five officers from Uganda came out and the plane left,” customs officer Ali Mohamed Adan told Reuters. “I have seen Ugandan officers arrive in Baidoa airport,” police officer Isak Hassan Warsame told Reuters. A security source, who declined to be named, said he expected the rest of the Ugandan contingent to arrive in the next 24 hours. Meanwhile, amid pomp and military music, President Yoweri Museveni waved off two battalions of Ugandan peacekeepers today as they prepared to deploy in Somalia. Officials said the 1,635 troops would land in the lawless capital, Mogadishu, as soon as some expected equipment arrived from overseas – probably next week. They include an infantry battalion, a tank battalion and various support staff, Museveni said in a speech. “This is a fully capable force to undertake any task within (its) mandate,” Museveni shouted out to silent rows of soldiers in bright green AU berets at a barracks in Jinja, east of Kampala, where they underwent peacekeeping training. As a brass band’s trumpet melodies and drum beats picked up tempo, white-armoured AU personal carriers laden with waving soldiers drove through the main square. Mr Museveni warned the peacekeepers in his speech that their mandate was not to engage in combat with Islamist or any other fighters hostile to Somalia’s transitional government. “We are not going to disarm Somali militias. That’s not our job,” he said. “Once we empower the Somalis, if they think the guns should be removed, they will be the ones to do it.” (Reuters) | 
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