Ugandan soldiers landed in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Tuesday, the first African Union peacekeepers to arrive in the city where the interim government and its Ethiopian allies face almost daily guerrilla attacks. Sixteen Ugandan soldiers were aboard the unmarked Russian-made Antonov cargo plane that flew into Mogadishu’s international airport.

A series of blasts hit the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Friday, witnesses said, a day after Ugandan peacekeepers started arriving in the country. Residents said they heard mortar bombs being fired in the direction of Mogadishu’s port.

The United States this week conducted a second air strike in Somalia, US officials said on Wednesday, as the top US envoy in East Africa met an ousted Islamist leader to press for reconciliation with the government. The new air strike came roughly two weeks after an AC-130 plane killed what Washington said were eight al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters.

Ethiopian forces that helped Somalia’s interim government rout rival Islamists in a war over the New Year will begin leaving the chaotic Horn of Africa nation’s capital on Tuesday, an Ethiopian general said. ”Starting today [Tuesday], we will withdraw our forces from Mogadishu,” General Suem Hagoss said at a ceremony in the volatile coastal capital.

Ethiopian troops and Somali police opened fire on Mogadishu demonstrators on Monday, killing at least three in the latest violence in parts of the capital where support for ousted Islamists ran high, a witness said.

A mortar attack on Somalia’s presidential palace has shown the need for peacekeepers to move quickly into the Horn of Africa nation, the African Union (AU) said after endorsing such a mission. The AU’s peace and security council approved a 7 650-strong force for Somalia late on Friday, just minutes before attackers struck Mogadishu’s hilltop Villa Somalia.

The Somali government on Tuesday relaxed a ban on four major media outlets it had closed, accusing them of biased coverage during the Horn of Africa nation’s recent war, media owners said. Officials complained the outlets aired unconfirmed reports and leaned towards Islamists ousted at the New Year by an Ethiopian-led offensive.

Somalia’s government, with new emergency powers in hand to tame the chaotic country, ordered four major media outlets to shut on Monday as the president named a team to take charge of the capital. The interim government is struggling to impose order and has seen forces backing it attacked repeatedly, most recently in a firefight late on Sunday.