RED CARD: But the Al-Shabab milita and Hizbul Islam group have imposed a ban on the game, saying it is encouraging immorality
By Guled Mohamed
Special Correspondent
The normally silent mess where the peacekeepers senior officers take their meals bursts into life amid wild celebration with each goal scored by an African team.
The African Union Mission to Somalia officers' usual calm demeanour is overtaken by emotions, their football fanaticism revealing itself with every moment of the feautiful game.
The World Cup - the first ever to be played on African soil - has become a much-needed leisure pastime, for the peacekeepers who are helping to restore normalcy in a country devestated by a 20-year-old civil war.
After a day's hard work in the humid Mogadishu conditions, they now spend their evenings enjoying a football game in the cool Indian Ocean sea breeze.
And they are not alone in celebrating the game.