African Union

In swift retaliation for the U.S. killing this week of a suspected Al Qaeda fugitive in Somalia, insurgents attacked the main African Union peacekeeping base in Mogadishu with twin truck bombs Thursday, killing at least nine people, including four AU soldiers. Suicide bombers attempted to infiltrate the heavily guarded seaside base by impersonating U.N. personnel, AU officials said. Among the wounded were unidentified senior Somali government officials, who were visiting the base, and the newly arrived African Union force commander, Ugandan Maj. Gen. Nathan Mugisha, who suffered minor injuries, AU and government officials said.

Even in a country that has endured so much suffering, few images could more tragically convey the senseless violence gripping Somalia today than the expressionless stare of a 5-year-old boy named Omar. As he slept next to his mother one recent morning, a stray bullet from a nearby gun battle struck him in the back of the head. He made no movement or sound, so his family members didn't even notice at first. Later they saw blood oozing from a small hole in his head and thought it was a snakebite.

When a mystery illness swept through the African Union peacekeeping mission here, killing six soldiers and sickening dozens, doctors were stumped. With help from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they ruled out swine flu, tropical infection, rat-borne bacteria and even deliberate poisoning, as claimed by Somalia's insurgents. But the culprit, doctors fear, is just as alarming: beriberi, a vitamin-deficiency disorder typically seen only in famines. Simply put, African Union soldiers appear to have died from a form of malnutrition.

A suicide car bomb attack against African Union peacekeepers in Somalia on Sunday killed 11 Burundian soldiers and wounded 15, the deadliest attack against AU troops since their deployment two years ago. Insurgents from the Shabab militia, which claims links to Al Qaeda, took responsibility and vowed to continue assaults against AU soldiers who have been helping shore up Somalia's shaky transitional government.

The African Union urged the International Criminal Court on Friday to suspend its indictment of Sudan's president on genocide charges, saying it could jeopardize any peace process in Darfur. The court's chief prosecutor has accused President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir of committing genocide and crimes against humanity in a campaign against tribes in Darfur involving killings, rape and deportation.

The African Union suspended Guinea from the bloc and threatened further sanctions unless young soldiers who seized power last week restore constitutional rule. That seemed unlikely in the immediate future, however, as many in Guinea appeared to welcome the bloodless coup that followed the Dec. 22 death of longtime dictator Lansana Conte.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor at The Hague requested arrest warrants for three Darfur rebel commanders, accusing them of storming an African Union camp and killing 12 peacekeepers. Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who also wants to put Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir on trial over the conflict in his nation's Darfur region, said rebel attacks on peacekeepers last year were considered war crimes under the court's statute. About 1,000 fighters led by the rebel commanders, whose names were not made public, attacked and overwhelmed the camp without warning, African Union officials said.

The African Union will suspend Mauritania until democracy is restored in the West African nation where soldiers overthrew the president this week, AU chair Tanzania said. Tanzanian Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Membe said Mauritania had signed several AU conventions banning illegal changes of government, including one last month. Soldiers led by the presidential guard overthrew Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, the country's first democratically elected president, on Wednesday after he tried to sack senior officers.

The U.N. Security Council approved another year of peacekeeping in Sudan's Darfur region despite sharp divisions among member nations over genocide charges filed against Sudan's president. The United States supports the peacekeeping mission but abstained from the council's 14-0 vote. It objects to language in the resolution that notes that the African Union wants the council to freeze the International Criminal Court's prosecution of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir. U.S. spokesman Richard Grenell said that the language sent the wrong signal to a man who the U.S. believes presided over genocide.

Somalia's new hard-line opposition leader promised Friday to pacify his shattered country through Islamic law, warning U.N. peacekeepers they will face attack if they deploy and support the government. Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, whose Islamic regime was ousted from power in 2006 with tacit support from the United States, is gaining influence again as a deadly insurgency ruptures Somalia. Thousands have been killed in the fighting since 2007. Aweys this week took over the Islamist opposition movement, which operates in exile in Eritrea, pushing out a more moderate cleric who signed a peace agreement with Somalia's U.N.-backed government last month.