(7 Mar 2007)
Mogadishu airport
1. Ugandan troops marching on tarmac
2. Ugandan soldier holding African Union (AU) flag
3. More of Ugandan troops
4. SOUNDBITE: (English) Paddy Akunda, Ugandan military spokesman
"And our purpose here... We shall not impose our will. We shall not fight anybody. But we shall help the Somali people to create institutions of governance, to be able to transform their country as a people and also to help them relate well with the neighbours."
5. Ugandan troops with armoured vehicle marked with the signature AU
Mogadishu
6. Wide of Mogadishu
7. People gathering on street
8. Minibus
9. Various window of minibus with two bullet-holes in it
10. Bloodstained sheet
11. Bloodstained rags in minibus
12. Bloodstained shoe
13. Punctured tyre
14, SOUNDBITE: (Somali) Mohammed Ali, minibus passenger
"This minibus was transporting a pregnant woman, there were six injured in it and one was killed."
15. Wounded person being carried on stretcher at Al-Madina hospital
16. Injured boy
17. Various of injured pregnant woman
18. People gathered in street shouting Allah Akbar (God is great)
19. People gathered by roadside
STORYLINE:
The first peacekeepers to arrive in Somalia's capital in more than ten years were met with a surge of violence on Tuesday, as mortars hit the airport during a welcoming ceremony and a gun battle broke out on the city's streets.
An Associated Press reporter said eight mortars were launched, but only two struck the airport in the capital Mogadishu.
A policeman at the scene said one person was wounded.
The street battles involving masked gunmen killed three people and mortars wounded one, all of them civilians, witnesses and police said.
The violence indicated the difficulty peacekeepers face in a country that has seen little more than anarchy for years, and where the government backed by Ethiopian troops toppled an Islamic militia only months ago.
Witnesses claimed around 100 gunmen were involved in the battle.
He said the fighting began after police went house-to-house looking for suspects in the attack on the airport.
About 400 Ugandan peacekeepers arrived in the capital.
Their mission is to protect the Somali government and to allow for the withdrawal of troops sent in from neighbouring Ethiopia, which in December helped the administration topple a radical Islamic militia.
Before being ousted, the movement known as the Council of Islamic Courts, had held the capital and much of southern Somalia for six months.
Somalia has not had an effective national government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another, throwing the country into anarchy.
The Ugandan troops were the vanguard of a larger African Union force authorised by the United Nations to help the government assert its authority in one of the most violent and gun-infested cities in the world.
"We shall not impose our will. We shall not fight anybody. But we shall help the Somali people to create institutions of governance, to be able to transform their country as a people and also to help them relate well with the neighbours," Ugandan military spokesman Paddy Akunda told AP television.
Insurgents believed to be the remnants of Somalia's Council of Islamic Courts have staged almost daily attacks against the government, its armed forces or the Ethiopian military.
The African peacekeepers are expected to reach a level of 8-thousand troops and, according to African Union Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit, are allowed to defend themselves if attacked, but not to initiate offensives.
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