African Union plane in Somalia on fire

NAIROBI, Mar 9 (Reuters) A plane that transported African Union peacekeepers to Somalia's capital Mogadishu earlier this week was on fire today, an airport security official said.

The official, who declined to be named, had no information on the cause of the fire.

A Reuters witness said: ''It's a small fire on the landing gear of the plane.'' Ugandan troops, vanguard of a planned 8,000-strong African Union (AU) force meant to pacify one of the world's most dangerous cities, have been targeted from the time they landed in the capital on Tuesday.

Insurgents who have carried out near-daily assaults against the interim government and its Ethiopian allies in the Horn of Africa for the past two months had threatened to attack the AU troops.

The insurgents are thought to be mainly fighters from an Islamist movement routed from the capital in December in a joint Somali-Ethiopian military offensive.

The AU force is being deployed to help President Abdullahi Yusuf's government extend its shaky authority over a country mired in anarchy since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991.

None of the 13 other attempts at government since then has succeeded.

As with a peacekeeping operation in Sudan's Darfur region, the AU faces a shortage of money and equipment.

Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi and Burundi are also expected to send troops, but pledges so far make up only about half of the required 8,000 soldiers.

A well-funded US-UN peacekeeping mission quit Mogadishu in 1995, bloodied and humiliated by relentless attacks from well-armed Somali militiamen.

Reuters SY DB1251