KARLSRUHE : On Soldiers Abroad

Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court will rule Wednesday whether the government must recall 260 German soldiers already in Somalia as part of a U.N. peacekeeping mission and renege on its commitment to send 1,700 more troops next month.

Opposition Social Democrats reluctantly went along with the April government compromise that allowed German ground forces to be deployed in so-called safe zones for strictly humanitarian work.

But recent heavy fighting around Mogadishu and the deaths of more than 20 Pakistani U.N. peacekeepers led the socialists to challenge the deployment in court. Although ambiguous in its wording, the German constitution has been interpreted for years as forbidding Bundeswehr military action outside the Western Alliance area.