The UN feeds AMISOM’s troops, the EU pays them and the US and Italy pay Somali troops. The US, though, is the biggest single financial contributor. 'The Americans have supported the training of our troops here, in Uganda and in Burundi, and largely they sponsor it,' said one source in this Washington Post article. The US insists AMISOM is not the West’s proxy. 'AMISOM is an African peacekeeping force responding to an African crisis,' says the top US official on Somalia, James Swan.