MOGADISHU (AFP) — On Monday, witnesses in Mogadishu said they saw AU peacekeepers (troops from Uganda) replacing some Ethiopian Woyanne troops in southern Mogadishu.

“I saw a convoy of AU peacekeepers entering the former military academy of Jalle Siad where Ethiopians are usually stationed and they seemed to be replacing the Ethiopian forces,” local resident Abdulahi Mohamed said.

An AMISOM spokesman confirmed that a rotation was underway but refused to provide further details.

“It’s something we had planned because AU peacekeepers have to make sure that the Djibouti peace deal is implemented and that is why we deployed our forces around new locations in the capital,” he said.

The new AMISOM positions are manned by members of the Burundian contingent, which was completed last month and brought to 3,400 the total number of AU peacekeepers in Somalia.

One faction of the ARS has signed up to the Djibouti process but some elements have aligned themselves on the hardline position of the Shebab insurgents, who are opposed to any talks before a full Ethiopian Woyanne pullout.

A day after Somalia Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein blamed President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed for sabotaging efforts to create a new cabinet, UN envoy Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah scolded the Horn of Africa country’s bickering leaders.

“I appeal to all Somalis within the government, the opposition, the diaspora, the business community and other interested parties, especially as we are coming close to Eid al-Adha (the festival of sacrifice), to think of their country’s dignity and its future and end their disagreements,” he said in a statement.

Ould-Abdallah urged the pair “to agree on a new cabinet quickly because a continuing power struggle did not serve Somalia’s interests, particularly as there was now an agreement to establish a broad-based unity government.”

The Somali leaders failed to form the new government by November 12, a deadline set by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) — a regional body — during its October summit in Nairobi.

Hussein has also accused Yusuf of failing to support October power-sharing and truce deals reached between the government and the Islamist-led political opposition, the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), at UN-mediated talks in Djibouti.

The Djibouti deal also provides for a gradual handover of security responsibilities from the Ethiopian troops to the peacekeepers of the African Union mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

On Sunday, clashes at a checkpoint near Elashabiyaha town, 18 kilometres (11 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu, killed two, witnesses said.

The fighting was between rival factions of the Islamic Courts Union, the main group in the ARS.