The Punt­land semi­au­tonomous re­gion in north­ern So­ma­lia dis­missed UN’s pro­posal of de­ploy­ing troops from the African Union forces in the re­gion as the re­gion strug­gles to stave off a stub­born deadly in­sur­gency by the Al-Qaeda-linked group in So­ma­lia.

The United Na­tions en­voy to So­ma­lia Nicholas Kay has re­cently said that there were plans aimed at de­ploy­ing AU troops in Punt­land, fol­low­ing deadly at­tacks in­clud­ing an at­tack on UNICEF mini­van that killed at least 7 peo­ple in­clud­ing four in­ter­na­tional UNICEF work­ers.

Has­san Os­man, Punt­land’s se­cu­rity min­is­ter has dis­missed the ini­tia­tive, say­ing that they would not ac­cept AU forces de­ploy­ment in the re­gion.

“Af­ter the Garowe at­tack, there were se­ri­ous se­cu­rity con­cerns that led to of­fers of AU de­ploy­ment in Punt­land,” he told re­porter at a se­cu­rity meet­ing in Punt­land. “How­ever, we have ve­he­mently re­jected that idea be­cause we have enough troops to pro­vide se­cu­rity in Punt­land.” He said.

Mr. Os­man warned more vi­o­lence should AU forces de­ployed in the re­gion, urg­ing pub­lic to col­lab­o­rate with the gov­ern­ment to pre­vent fur­ther at­tacks.

In the mean­time, Punt­land con­vened an emer­gency se­cu­rity meet­ing by the cab­i­net on Wednes­day, em­pha­siz­ing the se­cu­rity min­is­ter’s re­jec­tion against the de­ploy­ment of AU forces in the re­gion.

Punt­land is fight­ing Al-Shabab fight­ers in the moun­tain­ous Gal­gala town which changed hands for the past few years. Al-Shabab is fight­ing to set up a key base in the strate­gic town that can pro­vide safe haven for the group’s fight­ers of­ten tar­geted by aer­ial at­tacks, mostly by the US forces.

Al-Shabab sent hun­dreds of fight­ers into the re­gion; how­ever, se­cu­rity forces have de­nied more ter­ri­tory grounds for the group which is try­ing to seize the re­gion which is close to Yemen where Al-Qaeda fight­ers have been try­ing to ex­pand their ar­eas of con­trol since Houthi fight­ers over­threw the gov­ern­ment.