"The African Union is not in Somalia to fight or to be drawn into any conflict we are not part of. We are there as an impartial and neutral peacekeeping force."
its conviction that, following the recent developments that have enabled the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to take over Mogadishu and take control of the country, there exists today a unique and unprecedented opportunity to restore structures of governance in Somalia ...
and decides
to provide, as appropriate, protection to the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs) and their key infrastructure, to enable them to carry out their functions.
If AMISOM had been established and deployed in 2005 things might have been different, but by the beginning of 2007 the TFG had already lost most of the little credibility it ever had, and it was wishful thinking that the ICU would simply disappear.
AMISOM is now stuck with protecting what increasingly appears to be the losing side in a civil war. The sooner it can withdraw the better.