EU foreign ministers will on Monday give the green light for European instructors to train up some 2,000 Somali soldiers to reinforce the embryonic governmental army, diplomatic sources said. "The plan is to train 2,000 members of the Somali security forces in Uganda, one diplomat said Friday.

The operation, in which around 100 European military personnel will take part, could begin in May, another diplomat said, adding that it had not yet been determined which EU nations would contribute, on a voluntary basis. "We are in the process of discussing the national contributions," he said. Somalia has been gripped by civil wars and insurgencies and bereft of stable government since the overthrow of President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010