Somalia

[Greed]

Death toll soars as Mogadishu battles rage
1 hour, 12 minutes ago

Islamic militia and gunmen loyal to a US-backed warlord alliance have fought pitched battles in the streets of the lawless Somali capital as the death toll from five days of clashes soared.

Machine gun, rocket and mortar fire rained down on bullet-scarred neighborhoods in northern and central Somalia, indiscriminately killing and wounding civilians while residents fled their homes in terror, witnesses said Thursday.

Overnight violence claimed at least 17 lives as shelling of urban residential areas intensified and the two factions showed no sign of heeding widespread appeals for a truce, they said.

"Seventeen people were killed overnight, mostly by heavy mortar shells," Ahmed Idriss, a Somali peace activist, told AFP, adding that another 36 had been wounded and taken to hospitals.

Meanwhile, thousands of civilians fled the most-affected Huriwa, Yaqshid, Waharaade and Sisi neighborhoods, leaving up to 70 percent of homes empty amid the continuing chaos, residents said.

The new fatalities, including children, brought the death toll to at least 70 from the fighting for control of the capital that erupted on Sunday with more than 200 injuries, witnesses and medical sources said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimated 80 people had been killed, citing a survey of the city's two main hospitals that reported treating at least 184 wounded people, including 20 women and 22 children.

In a statement, the ICRC and Somali Red Crescent said they were increasingly concerned about the humanitarian consequences "of the intense armed clashes" in Mogadishu.

Similar expressions have already come from the United Nations and Somalia's largely powerless transitional government that is currently based in the town of Baidoa, west of the capital Mogadishu, both of which urged calm.

The appeals and an offer of a truce from the Islamic clerics who control the militia were dismissed by the warlord-led Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), which blamed the Islamists for the violence.

"Most of the indiscriminate shelling is coming from the so-called Islamic courts who have no regard for humanity," alliance spokesman Hussein Gutale Raghe told AFP, adding that his group would fight until the Islamists were defeated.

But an official of Mogadishu's increasingly influential courts, which UN experts believe now control of about 80 percent of the capital, placed the blame squarely on the alliance, which was formed in February with US support.

"You know who is paid to kill Somalis by outsiders," the official told AFP. "The courts are out to save the Islamic people of Somalia, and our ceasefire offer was rejected by the so-called alliance."

On Wednesday, a panel of UN experts said the alliance had been "severely degraded" in the fighting and that Islamic militias had consolidated their hold over large areas of the capital formerly held by warlords.

The violence has now eclipsed that recorded over three days in February and four days in March when at least 85 people were killed as the two factions fought each other.

Those incidents had been the bloodiest clashes in the capital since Somalia collapsed into anarchy 15 years ago and sent tensions skyrocketing with the Islamic courts declaring a holy war against the ARPCT.

The alliance has vowed to curb the power of the courts that have gained popular backing by restoring some stability to areas in Mogadishu they control by imposing Sharia law.

It also accuses the courts of harboring terrorists and training foreign fighters on Somali soil, charges that Islamic leaders deny but are also levelled by the United States and other Western nations.

Although Washington has not explicitly confirmed its support for the alliance, US officials have told AFP the group has received US money and is one of several it is working with to contain the threat of radical Islam.

Last week, the State Department acknowledged that the United States was working with "responsible individuals" in Somalia to prevent "terror taking root in the Horn of Africa."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2006051...AGFOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

 

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[QueEx]

<font size="6"><center>Gun battles kill 135 in Somalia </font size>
<font size="4">war on terror said to play role</font size></center>

By Marc Lacey
New York Times News Service
Published May 13, 2006


NAIROBI, Kenya -- A new front in the war on terror has broken out on the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia, as a group of Islamists battled Somali warlords allied with Washington's aim of rooting out Muslim extremism from the region.

As of Friday, the sixth day of some of the worst street combat since the central government collapsed in 1991, 135 people have been killed, most of them non-combatants.

Although the American Embassy in Nairobi called on all parties to cease fighting, the U.S. government has been accused of backing the warlords, who have fashioned themselves into an anti-terrorism alliance, rooting out elements of Al Qaeda in their midst.

"It's a well-established fact for the last few years that U.S. counterterrorism officials and other intelligence officials have been working through Somali partners to fight extremists," said Suliman Baldo, director for Africa policy at the International Crisis Group, a Geneva-based advocacy group that studies wars around the world.

"From the little we know, the U.S. is not supporting the warlords with arms, per se," Baldo said. Instead, he said, American operatives were paying the warlords to help track down and apprehend those in Somalia suspected of being members of Al Qaeda.

The warlords, who say they have joined America's fight against terrorism, are calling themselves the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism. They are led by Mohammed Deere, Mohammed Qanyare and Bashir Rageh all powerful figures in Mogadishu.

In interviews, American officials declined to detail their relationship with the warlords and said only that their goal was to support both the fight against terrorism and the recently formed transitional government that is struggling to gain a foothold.

But the president of that government pointed his finger at the United States and said U.S. counterterrorism efforts would work better if they went through Somalia's fledgling government and not through individual warlords.

"They really think they can capture Al Qaeda members in Somalia," President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed said. "But the Americans should tell the warlords they should support the government, and cooperate with the government."


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...ll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>U.S. Secretly Backing Warlords in Somalia</font size></center>

Washington Post
By Emily Wax and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 17, 2006; Page A01

More than a decade after U.S. troops withdrew from Somalia following a disastrous military intervention, officials of Somalia's interim government and some U.S. analysts of Africa policy say the United States has returned to the African country, secretly supporting secular warlords who have been waging fierce battles against Islamic groups for control of the capital, Mogadishu.

The latest clashes, last week and over the weekend, were some of the most violent in Mogadishu since the end of the American intervention in 1994, and left 150 dead and hundreds more wounded. Leaders of the interim government blamed U.S. support of the militias for provoking the clashes.

U.S. officials have declined to directly address on the record the question of backing Somali warlords, who have styled themselves as a counterterrorism coalition in an open bid for American support. Speaking to reporters recently, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States would "work with responsible individuals . . . in fighting terror. It's a real concern of ours -- terror taking root in the Horn of Africa. We don't want to see another safe haven for terrorists created. Our interest is purely in seeing Somalia achieve a better day."

U.S. officials have long feared that Somalia, which has had no effective government since 1991, is a desirable place for al-Qaeda members to hide and plan attacks. The country is strategically located on the Horn of Africa, which is only a boat ride away from Yemen and a longtime gateway to Africa from the Middle East. No visas are needed to enter Somalia, there is no police force and no effective central authority.

The country has a weak transitional government operating largely out of neighboring Kenya and the southern city of Baidoa. Most of Somalia is in anarchy, ruled by a patchwork of competing warlords; the capital is too unsafe for even Somalia's acting prime minister to visit.

Leaders of the transitional government said they have warned U.S. officials that working with the warlords is shortsighted and dangerous.

"We would prefer that the U.S. work with the transitional government and not with criminals," the prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, said in an interview. "This is a dangerous game. Somalia is not a stable place and we want the U.S. in Somalia. But in a more constructive way. Clearly we have a common objective to stabilize Somalia, but the U.S. is using the wrong channels."

Many of the warlords have their own agendas, Somali officials said, and some reportedly fought against the United States in 1993 during street battles that culminated in an attack that downed two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters and left 18 Army Rangers dead.

"The U.S. government funded the warlords in the recent battle in Mogadishu, there is no doubt about that," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari told journalists by telephone from Baidoa. "This cooperation . . . only fuels further civil war."

U.S. officials have refused repeated requests to provide details about the nature and extent of their support for the coalition of warlords, which calls itself the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism in what some Somalis say is a marketing ploy to get U.S. support.

But some U.S. officials, who declined to be identified by name because of the sensitivity of the issue, have said they are generally talking to these leaders to prevent people with suspected ties to al-Qaeda from being given safe haven in the lawless country.

"There are complicated issues in Somalia in that the government does not control Mogadishu and it has the potential for becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda and like-minded terrorists," said one senior administration official in Washington. "We've got very clear interests in trying to ensure that al-Qaeda members are not using it to hide and to plan attacks." He said it was "a very difficult issue" trying to show support for the fledgling interim government while also working to prevent Somalia from becoming an al-Qaeda base.

A senior U.S. intelligence official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was a "Hobbesian" situation -- that the transitional government operating from Kenya was in its "fifteenth iteration" and that it, too, was a "collection of warlords" that played both sides of the fence. The official said that it presented a classic "enemy of our enemy" situation.

The source said Somalia was "not an al-Qaeda safe haven" yet, adding, "There are some there, but it's so dysfunctional." U.S. officials specifically believe that a small number of al-Qaeda operatives who were involved in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania are now residing in Somalia.

Analysts said they were convinced the Bush administration was backing the warlords as part of its global war against terrorism.

"The U.S. relies on buying intelligence from warlords and other participants in the Somali conflict, and hoping that the strongest of the warlords can snatch a live suspect or two if the intelligence identifies their whereabouts," said John Prendergast, the director for African affairs in the Clinton administration and now a senior adviser at the nongovernmental International Crisis Group. "This strategy might reduce the short-term threat of another terrorist attack in East Africa, but in the long term the conditions which allow terrorist cells to take hold along the Indian Ocean coastline go unaddressed. We ignore these conditions at our peril."

"Are we talking to them and doing some of that? Yes," said Ted Dagne, the leading Africa analyst for the Congressional Research Service. "We fought some of these warlords in 1993 and now we are dealing with some of them again, perhaps supporting some of them against other groups. Somalia is still considered by some as an attractive location for terrorist groups."

The issue of U.S. backing came to the forefront this winter when warlords formed the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism after a fundamentalist Islamic group began asserting itself in the capital, setting up courts of Islamic law and building schools and hospitals.

Soon after, the coalition of warlords were well-equipped with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and antiaircraft guns, which were used in heavy fighting in the capital last week. It was the second round of fighting this year, following clashes in March that killed more than 90 people, mostly civilians, and emptied neighborhoods around the capital.

In a report to the U.N. Security Council this month, the world body's monitoring group on Somalia said it was investigating an unnamed country's secret support for an anti-terrorism alliance in apparent violation of a U.N. arms embargo.

The experts said they were told in January and February of this year that "financial support was being provided to help organize and structure a militia force created to counter the threat posed by the growing militant fundamentalist movement in central and southern Somalia."

In March, the State Department said in its terrorism report that the U.S. government was concerned about al-Qaeda fugitives "responsible for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and the November 2002 bombing of a tourist hotel and attack on a civilian airliner in Kenya, who are believed to be operating in and around Somalia."

The United States relies on Ethiopia and Kenya for information about Somalia. Both countries have complex interests and long-standing ties and animosities in the country. In December 2002, the United States also established an anti-terrorism task force in neighboring Djibouti, with up to 1,600 U.S. troops stationed in the country.

Africa researchers said they were concerned that while the Bush administration was focused on the potential terrorist threat, little was being done to support economic development initiatives that could provide alternative livelihoods to picking up a gun or following extremist ideologies in Somalia. Somalia watchers and Somalis themselves said there has not been enough substantial backing for building a new government after 15 years of collapsed statehood.

"If the real problem is Somalia, then what have we done to change the situation inside Somalia? Are we funding schools, health care or helping establish an effective government?" Dagne said. "We have a generation of Somali kids growing up without education and only knowing violence and poverty. Unless there is a change, these could become the next warlords out of necessity for survival. That's perhaps the greatest threat we have yet to address."

Somalis far from the factional fighting in Mogadishu said they were waiting for anyone to help ease their destitute lives during the worst drought in a decade.

In Waajid, a dusty town about 200 miles northwest of the capital, thousands of villagers have left their farms for squalid camps, searching for water and living in open, rocky fields under low-lying, fragile shelters of sticks and rags that look like bird's nests.

Many people here say they feel that the United States has ignored Somalia since the failed 1993 military intervention. Today many Somalis said they regret that chapter in their history and thank the United States, the largest donor of food and funding for water trucks during this season's drought.

However, they said that news that the U.S. government was talking with warlords has awakened feelings of resentment.

"George W. Bush, we welcome the Americans. But not to back warlords. We need the U.S.A. to help the young government," said Isak Nur Isak, the district commissioner in Waajid. "We won't drag any Americans through the street like in 1993. We want to be clear: We don't want only food aid, but we do want political support for the new government, which is all we have right now to put our hopes in. We can't eat if everyone is dead."

Wax reported from Waajid, Somalia, and Nairobi. DeYoung reported from Washington.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/16/AR2006051601625.html

 

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[GET YOU HOT]

^^^^
Violence Flares in Somalia
Fighting between Islamic fighters and war lords has surged this month in Somalia. In May alone, almost 200 have been killed between militant fighters and a group known as the Anti-Terrorism Alliance. This weekend, 20 people were killed in Mogadishu as the rival groups battled for control of the city. The violence is being fuelled by the belief that local warlords are being backed by the US Government, an accusation they deny.

US 'wrongly blamed' for Somali violence
2.55PM, Tue May 23 2006

The US has said it was "wrongly blamed" for causing the worst fighting in Somalia for some years.

The statement, in an open letter from America's ambassador in Kenya, is the strongest denial so far of claims made by Somalia's President and others.

Somalia has had no effective government since a civil war in the late 1980s, and power is shared between rival militias.

Recently, severe fighting erupted between a coalition of militias and Mogadishu's increasingly powerful Islamic courts.

Some international observers believe the courts to be a front for Al Qaeda, and it was recently claimed that the US had been secretly funding the coalition's struggle against them.

Writing to Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper, Ambassador William Bellamy said some reports had "wrongly blamed" the fighting on his country.

"Lost in the diplomacy and politics is the fact that the US is reaching out in many ways to help improve the lives of ordinary Somalis," Bellamy wrote.

"It is true the US has encouraged a variety of groups in Somalia to oppose the Al Qaeda presence and reject the Somali militants who shelter and protect these terrorists," he wrote.

The Islamic courts say U.S. money is pouring into Mogadishu to support their enemies, while the coalition says its opponents have links to Al Qaeda.

Asked to comment on Bellamy's letter, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a leading Islamist on America's list of most wanted terrorists, said the courts do not harbour foreign militants.

He said: "We will continue fighting as long as they attack us."


Al-Qaeda's Presence In Somalia Poses Danger, Says Minister
By R. Ravichandran

PUTRAJAYA, May 29 (Bernama) -- The Transitional Federal Government of Somalia Monday claimed that there was a presence of Al-Qaeda network in the east African country and called on the international community for help, saying that the current situation posed grave danger to the world stability and security.

Its Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail said that Somalia had been a breeding ground for extremist activities for the past 15 years and the situation remained so until today.

He said that Somalia had already become "another Afghanistan" and criticised the United States for not cooperating or coordinating with his government to tackle the problem but helping one particular group in Somalia.

The Somalian minister said that groups linked to terrorism activities in Somalia were getting arms by looting, smuggling through the seaports and airstrips they controlled, and money to buy arms from funds collected from Arab Gulf States and from ransom taken from the civilian population and the business community.

"It (Somalia) is already another Afghanistan. It is a threat to us...it is a threat to the region and it is a threat to the international community," he told Bernama on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement Coordinating Bureau (NAM-CoB) Ministerial Meeting at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre.

After Taliban wrested power in 1996, Afghanistan was the breeding ground for terrorism activities and training and the main base for Al-Qaeda until the September 11 attack by Al-Qaeda which led to the US-led coalition invasion ousting Taliban in late 2001.

The Somalia Transitional Federal Government is functioning from Baidoa, about 240km south of capital Mogadishu due to insecurity in the capital, which continues to witness armed fighting between various groups resulting in more than 300 people killed so far and thousands were displaced.

Abdullahi said the international community as well NAM had neglected and abandoned Somalia after the country went into anarchy and lawlessness in 1991.

Somalia, a war-torn country in the The Horn of Africa plunged into civil war after the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, placing the country without a functioning government.

Abdullahi said the Somalian government needed the international community's help in order to form an effective security force to fight terrorist groups and to protect the country.

Abdullahi said Somalia also needed peace stabilisation forces under the African Union and any such mission from the United Nations would also be welcomed.

-- BERNAMA

 

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<font size="5"><center>Somalia Militia Installs Religious Court </font size></center>

The Guardian
Thursday June 8, 2006 2:01 AM
By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN
Associated Press Writer

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - An increasingly powerful Islamic militia rolled through its newly captured territory and installed a religious court in one town Wednesday as the remnants of a U.S.-backed alliance of warlords desperately tried to regroup.

The Islamic Courts Union controls the Somali capital and surrounding areas after defeating the secular warlord alliance in weeks of battles that killed at least 330 people - many of them civilians caught in the crossfire.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, have confirmed cooperating with the secular warlords, who charge the militia has links to al-Qaida.

The Bush administration has not confirmed or denied giving money to the alliance. President Bush warned this week that the chief concern ``is to make sure that Somalia does not become an al-Qaida safe haven.''

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Wednesday the Islamic Courts Union had sent a letter to the United States, adding that Washington was reserving judgment on the group.

``In terms of the Islamic courts, our understanding is that this isn't a monolithic group that it is really an effort on the part of some individuals to try to restore some semblance of order in Mogadishu,'' McCormack told reporters.

Their aim, he added, ``is to try to lay the foundations for some institutions in Somalia that might form the basis for a better and more peaceful, secure Somalia where the rule of law is important.''

McCormack was answering a question whether the Islamic Courts group had pledged in its letter that it was not going to harbor terrorists. McCormack would only confirm that the letter had been received.

``I think that as a matter of principle that we would look forward to working with groups or individuals who have an interest in a better, more peaceful, more stable, secure Somalia who are interested - who are also interested in fighting terrorism,'' he said.

Somalia has been without a real government since largely clan-based warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, dividing this nation of 8 million into a patchwork of rival fiefdoms.

Militiamen toting heavy machine guns installed an Islamic court in Balad, about 20 miles from the capital. Chanting residents said that an Islamic state would help pacify a nation wracked by anarchy since 1991.

``Allah is our God, Muhammad is our prophet and Islam is our religion, so we are in favor of acting on the holy Quran,'' said local cleric Mohamud Anshur.

Shop owner Mostaf Hassan Ali said he would give the militia a chance.

``The secular militia did not provide reliable security to this town. Now, we can rest assured the Islamists can improve the situation,'' he said.

About 20 miles away in Jowhar, their last remaining stronghold, secular warlords took up defensive positions two days after being pushed out of the capital in a humiliating defeat that came despite U.S. support for their alliance, which has said it wants to root out terrorists.

If militiamen capture Jowhar and consolidate power in Mogadishu, the Islamic Courts Union will effectively control all of the major towns in southern Somalia, further isolating the U.N.-backed transitional government in Baidoa, 155 miles from the capital.

Interim Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi told journalists in Baidoa that the international community needed to urgently send food, medicine and temporary shelter to assist residents of Mogadishu driven from their homes by the fighting.

He called for international mediation to bring peace to Somalia's troubled capital and to prevent any future outbreaks of violence. He said his government was ready to begin negotiations with the Islamic militants.

Somalia's location in the Horn of Africa and its role as a cultural bridge with the Middle East gives the country strategic importance, so much so that the United States has posted troops in neighboring Djibouti to try to prevent terror groups from taking hold in the Horn of Africa.

But U.S. efforts to influence Somalia have consistently fallen flat. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. officials have expressed concerns that Somalia could become a haven for terrorists.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5871658,00.html

 

[Pitchdogg]

we'll be back over there once this Iran thing simmers.

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>Bin Laden tape warns world over Somalia</font size></center>

The Telegraph (London)
(Filed: 01/07/2006)

An audio tape apparently made by the al-Qa'eda leader Osama bin Laden has warned the international community to stay out of Somalia.

Bin Laden, making his second internet broadcast in two days, called on Somalians to back Islamists who have made military gains in the country.

"We will fight (US) soldiers on the land of Somalia ... and we reserve the right to punish it on its land and anywhere possible," said the speaker on the tape, sounding like the Saudi-born militant.

He added: "We warn all of the countries in the world not to respond to America by sending international troops to Somalia."

No immediate independent verification of the voice was immediately available but the tape was posted on an internet site used by Islamists.

A US counter-terrorism official, who declined to be named, said analysis of the recording confirmed it was "the voice of Osama bin Laden".

The al-Qa'eda leader also warned Iraqi Shias of retaliation for attacks on Sunnis.

"It is not possible that many of (the Shi'ites) violate, alongside America and its allies, (the Sunni cities of) Ramadi, Falluja, Mosul .... (and) that their areas would be safe from retaliation and harm," he said.

Bin Laden said he endorsed Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also believed to have the name of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, as the new leader of the al-Qa'eda in Iraq group after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a US air strike on June 7.

Another purported bin Laden tape, released yesterday, praised Zarqawi and vowed that al-Qa'eda would fight US forces and their allies everywhere.

Today's broadcast was Bin Laden's fifth in 2006.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...laden.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/07/01/ixnews.html

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>Somalia: Somali PM Slams Osama Bin Laden</font size></center>

Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
July 2, 2006
Posted to the web July 3, 2006
Mogadishu

The Prime minister of Somalia, Ali Mohamed Gedi has angrily reacted to the recent statement from the leader of Al qa'eda Osama Bin Laden on Somalia, saying that the Somali People were practicing Islam before the Birth of Osama Bin Laden and his ancestors so Osama should leave the Somali affairs to the Somalis.

At a press conference, he held in Baidoa where the transitional federal government of Somalia is based, Ali Mohamed was reacting to an audio message on the internet purported to the Leader of Al qa'eda Osama Bin Laden.

In his message Osama Bin Laden called on the Somali People to support the Islamic courts Union and reject the Government of Somalia which Ali Mohamed Gedi is its Prime minister.

The Prime minister of Somalia said that after long suspicions about his involvement in Somalia, Bin Laden made clear in his recent message about Somalia that he has representatives in Somalia an d he called on the representatives of Osama Bin Laden to depart the Somali Territory or else they will be kicked out, warns Gedi.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said "Bin Laden claims that he is international leader of Islam which is untrue".

Gedi told that Bin Laden is a radical who spreads a theory of violence.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200607030679.html

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>Somalia, radical Islam and sea lanes</font size></center>

By Scott B MacDonald
July 18, 2006

NEW YORK - Sitting astride key sea lanes on the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean and not far from the Arabian Peninsula's oil fields, Somalia on the east coast of Africa is not an obscure piece of real estate.

This country of roughly 9 million people represents an increasingly dangerous problem to its neighbors in the form of international piracy and the potential for outside forces to meddle.

Lacking an effective central government since the downfall of the Siad Barre regime in 1991, it appears Somalia could be hitting another turning point as the Council of Islamic Courts of Somalia (CICS) has gained control over much of the south, including the capital Mogadishu.

Considering probable past linkages to Osama bin Laden and a
clear sympathy to the objective of creating a society built around sharia or Islamic law, the CICS has prompted the return of international attention to Somalia, with concerns this war-torn land could be following the same path as Afghanistan did under the Taliban.

Afghanistan and Somalia share something - both have undergone long periods of lawlessness, a reflection of weak or non-existent central governments. For the vast majority of people living in Afghanistan and Somalia, personal safety depended on the guns of the local warlord, hardly a satisfactory arrangement.

Consequently, when a group such as the Taliban in Afghanistan came along in the 1990s, offering law and order and an easy to understand ideology (radical Islam), there was a strong appeal. The Taliban were able to take over most of Afghanistan in a relatively short time, including the capital of Kabul because they offered something beyond the localized interest of a handful of thug-like warlords - at least initially. The same is occurring in Somalia, though a similar outcome is hardly cast in stone.

Located on the eastern horn of Africa, Somalia has a sad history. Since 1991, it has been badly fragmented and has earned the moniker of being Africa's "most-failed state". The northern part of the country has spun off into the self-proclaimed Republic of Somaliland and semi-autonomous Puntland, with the largest part of the country in the south long being a war zone, with various warlords and clans slugging it out for control over the former capital of Mogadishu.

There is a weak transitional government (backed by other African countries), independent warlords, and the CICS. The CICS has gained ground in June and July, including taking control of Mogadishu, something of symbolic value.

The CICS is a relatively broad-based Islamic movement, seeking to impose sharia law on the areas under its control, hence its heavy reliance on courts, backed by Muslim militias. It also marks a sharp contrast thus far from the arbitrary nature of local warlords, who are motivated by individual and clan interests.

For the long-embattled population, this is a positive departure. The country has a life expectancy of 48.45 years, one of the lowest in the world, infectious diseases are widespread (including malaria, bacterial diarrhea and typhoid fever), and it has one of the world's highest birth rates (close to 3%). It is estimated that literacy is about 37%, low by even African standards. Economic life is rudimentary, considering the breakdown in infrastructure.

Somalia, however, does have economic potential. The country is known to have supplies of uranium, iron ore, bauxite, copper, natural gas and probable oil reserves. Considering the charged nature of international energy and commodity markets, Somalia could benefit from commercial exploitation of its natural resources. Moreover, the country has a certain entrepreneurial spirit, reflected by the creation and maintenance of a wireless telecommunications system and a system of remittances banks that handle an estimated US$500 million from Somalis living aboard.

While warlords have created lawlessness on land, they have used piracy to finance their operations, making the Somali coast one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world according to the International Maritime Bureau and the United Nations. International shipping is subject to both raids for cargo and the holding of ships' crews for ransom. Consequently, it is little wonder that the CICS offering of law and order has an appeal, especially considering the weakness of the transitory government and the power of warlords, much along the same lines as the Taliban did in Afghanistan.

Yet the rise of the CICS is problematic. Members of the CICS have indicated support for al-Qaeda, and it is suspected that a number of international terrorists involved in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa have taken refuge in the country. Questions are also being raised about the possible flow of funds to radicals there from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. In addition, bin Laden recently warned he would help the CICS fight any foreigners that enter Somalia, a comment aimed at Ethiopia (which probably has small numbers of troops across the border on behalf of the transition government) and the United States.

Heightening concerns about the hardline Islamic angle, the CICS recently replaced a relatively moderate cleric as leader for Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is on the US terrorist watch list as a suspected al-Qaeda collaborator. Aweys is the founder of al-Itihad, a radical Islamic group founded in the 1990s.

The organization adheres to a strict reading of the Koran (similar to Wahhabi interpretation used by the Taliban in Afghanistan), has developed a beneficial relationship with major traders and remittance banks and has courted support from Somalia's poorest urban population with offers of welfare services. It has also been credited with several attacks in Ethiopia, which has been concerned about Somali claims over territory. Aweys admitted past contact with bin Laden, though no recent links.

The danger in Somalia is if the CICS becomes the dominant force pushed along by external opposition and support, it could create a Taliban-like state on a strategic crossroads. While adding one more potential headache in calculating international oil prices, it could only add to the country's problems. A more successful and radical CICS could be one result of stepped-up US involvement - Washington has already allegedly provided financial support for warlords to eliminate radical Islamic terrorists.

In looking to Somalia's future and its impact on the world, three points must be considered. First and foremost, most Somalis are probably not inclined to support a new Taliban regime. In those areas under CICS control, the clerics banned World Cup soccer "watching parties", cutting off electricity to theaters showing the games. In one case this resulted in the shooting of two demonstrators. Women have also been ordered to wear veils. Both moves have not gone over well with the majority of Somalis. In addition, most Somalis are aware the Taliban brought in al-Qaeda and even more violence.

Second, Somalia has been down this road before - during the 1970s the Horn of Africa became a proxy war zone in the Cold War and with disastrous effects. Somalia's bid to win its claim on a slice of Ethiopia ended up in a massive Soviet and Cuban intervention against Somalia, from which the Barre regime never fully recovered. Another round of external intervention could reinforce the current fragmentation.

Along these lines, Ethiopia is already deeply involved in Somalia's affairs, considering the troop build-up along the border, probable support of its troops inside the territory held by the transitional government and ongoing suspicion of the CICS as an instrument of Eritrea, with which it has a border dispute. Considering that foreign radical Islamists are probably also involved, as well as US special forces operating out of Djibouti, foreign involvement involving assassinations and military strikes is not likely to be the glue needed to pull things together again.

Third, Somalia does have a framework for creating a broad-based government, the Nairobi accords. Other African governments have a clear reason to provide greater support to making a new government work in Somalia as the creation of a Taliban-like state in the Horn of Africa would not be a positive development, especially considering the weak nature of many governments. Such a development would be dangerous on many levels - stirring up radical Islam in countries with multi-religious populations (such as Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria) or in places where moderate Islam has long ruled.

Somalia also represents a tough challenge for the United States. The 1993 US military intervention (along with other United Nations forces) was best remembered by the movie Black Hawk Down in which 18 special forces soldiers were killed in a failed attempt to capture the warlord Mohammad Farrah Aidid and restore order.

The consequent US withdrawal was taken by al-Qaeda as a sign the US had little staying power when circumstances turned tough - a fatal miscalculation. All the same, US policy since 2004 of supporting along with the UN the ineffectual transitional government has generated few rewards. Now, a more radical form of Islam could be rising.

Somalis have reached yet another fork in the road of their "national" development. One road leads to radical Islam and the very real potential for greater outside intervention - most likely by neighbors afraid of a Taliban-like regime on their doorstep. The other road is equally challenging, but the end game may have something Somalis badly desire - peace and stability.

That road is to work harder at creating a broad-gauged government, with room for moderate Islam as well as secular forces. This road requires the country's clans to surrender some power, the CICS to be flexible in dealing with the concerns of the international community (in particular in regard to terrorism) and external forces to be helpful where possible and show restraint when necessary.

None of this will be easy, but the danger of a Somalia becoming increasingly embroiled in the "war against terrorism" is not in anyone's interest.

Scott B MacDonald is editor and senior consultant of KWR International Advisor.

(Posted with permission from KWR International, Inc, (KWR), a consulting firm specializing in the delivery of research, communications and advisory services.)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HG18Aa01.html

 

[QueEx]

<font size="4"><center>
Ethiopia's Minister of Information, Berhan Hailu ... his government would
intervene to prop up Somalia's transitional government, which has no
effective military of its own and only controls the town of Baidoa ...
"We have the responsibility to defend the border and the Somali
government. We will crush them," Berhan said</font size></center>



[frame]http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/07/20/somalia.fightering.ap/index.html[/frame]

 

[QueEx]

<font size="5"><center>Senior Official Is Killed in Somalia </font size></center>

New York Times
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: July 28, 2006
NAIROBI, Kenya, July 28 — One of the top ministers of the transitional government of Somalia was assassinated outside a mosque today, the latest sign of worsening turbulence in an already unstable country.

Abdallah Deerow Isaq, the minister overseeing the efforts to rewrite Somali’s constitution, was ambushed by a lone gunman as he was leaving Friday prayers at a mosque in central Baidoa, the provincial town serving as the country’s temporary capital, witnesses said.

His death comes at a difficult time for the fledgling government, which is struggling with a powerful Islamic foe in Mogadishu, the country’s principal city, and with internal dissension in Baidoa.

More than a dozen members of the transitional parliament have quit in the past few days, with some of them defecting to Mogadishu to join the Muslim clerics who rule that city.

The parliament has scheduled a vote of confidence for Saturday to depose the Prime Minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi.

Many politicians have said they were fed up with Mr. Gedi, especially after word began to spread last week that large numbers of Ethiopian troops had been called in to the country to protect the Baidoa government. Ethiopia and Somali are regional rivals, and many Somalis said it was treacherous to ask for Ethiopian help.

“If those troops don’t leave soon, our government will fall, one hundred percent,” said Ahmed Mohammed Suleiman, a member of the transitional parliament.

Meanwhile, the Islamic Courts Union, the federation that controls Mogadishu and large swaths of the surrounding countryside, is apparently drawing in armament from neighboring countries. Several mysterious cargo planes that have landed in Mogadishu in recent days are thought to have been carrying heavy weapons.

There is still some hope for peace, though, with talks between the Baidoa transitional government and the Islamists set for next week. But many Somalis fear that another big civil war is coming, and that the Baidoa government and the Islamists will never agree on a formula for sharing power.

Somalia has not had an effective central government since early 1991, when warlords from various clans in the country overthrew its dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre, and then turned on one another. An American military incursion in 1993, meant to halt the civil war and deliver humanitarian aid, ended in failure.

The new interim government, formed with United Nations support, has not been able even to enter the former capital, Mogadishu, which was seized by the Islamist federation in June after months of bitter fighting against clan warlords.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/world/africa/28cnd-somalia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

 

[Greed]

U.S. has direct contacts with Somali Islamists

U.S. has direct contacts with Somali Islamists
By Sue Pleming
Fri Sep 22, 1:05 PM ET

The United States held a direct meeting in recent weeks with a key Islamist leader from Somalia and demanded the handover of "terrorists" believed to be in Mogadishu, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, said the U.S. ambassador in Kenya met this month with senior Islamist Sheikh Sharif Ahmed while in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.

"It was just normal diplomacy, we opened a channel to talk to them about the fact that we know that there are terrorists residing in Mogadishu and they needed to turn them over," Frazer told Reuters in an interview.

"The response was 'we don't know of any terrorists," she added.

The United States does not have an embassy in the war-torn African country and monitors developments there from its embassy in Kenya.

Frazer did not have the exact day of the meeting with Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, whom she said represented the more moderate face of the Islamists who seized power in Mogadishu last June,

The United States believes Somalia has become a safe haven for terrorist groups and Frazer said Washington thinks at least three of the plotters behind the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya are there.

Washington has been debating whether to deal directly with the Islamists instead of supporting the weak transitional government in Baidoa.

Frazer said Washington was still trying to establish who controlled the Islamists.

The United States has said it would not deal with cleric Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is on a U.N. list of al Qaeda associates and heads the Council of the Islamic Courts.

Developing out of Sharia courts that sprang up in lawless Mogadishu in the mid-1990s, the Islamist movement developed into a strong political and military force before taking over Mogadishu and a southern swathe of the country in June.

While Somalis have welcomed more security in areas seized by the Islamists, many are concerned by signs of fundamentalist practices such as enforcing dress codes.

The Islamists have written several letters to the United States and the United Nations and recently sent several envoys around the world to try to allay fears that the Sharia law they envisage would result in a Taliban-style rule.

Frazer said the Islamists had been asking the United States for a while for direct discussions and the Khartoum meeting provided this opportunity.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060922...8xZ.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

 

[QueEx]

Black Hawk's shadow

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2509558,00.html

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[BadKredyt]

Re: Black Hawk's shadow

"Unwilling to return to war-torn Mogadishu, the Government moved to Baidoa, where it was overtaken by events on the ground, and now sits impotent, crippled by mass desertions and sustained only by the forces of Somalia’s blood enemy".


and as luck would have it..the US is backing THAT as the Somali government..

 

[GET YOU HOT]

Re: Black Hawk's shadow

Arms to Somalia: Déjà vu
The latest report from the UN group that monitors the arms embargo on Somalia has caused quite a stir, generating extensive news coverage and eliciting vehement denials from governments accused of violating the embargo. But, as underscored by declassified US intelligence documents from the 1990s, such disregard for the embargo is nothing new.

The documents, which were obtained by the FAS under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal a disheartening similarity between sanctions-busting in the mid-1990’s and sanctions-busting now. From the countries involved to the weapons shipped, little appears to have changed over the last decade.

A 1995 memo from the Defense Intelligence Agency, for example, documents the acquisition by the Somali National Alliance - the militia commanded by the infamous warlord Mohammed Aideed - of “two airplane loads of weapons and ammunition” from Iran that included “23 shoulder-fired antiaircraft weapons of an unknown type.”

Ten years later, Iran is reportedly still sending shoulder-fired missiles to the volatile and lawless region. The soon-to-be-released UN report – a copy of which was obtained by the Council on Foreign Relations – documents the arrival in July 2006 of “an aircraft containing a shipment of arms from Iran” that reportedly included 45 “shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles.” The missiles, along with machine guns, grenade launchers, mines and small arms ammunition, were provided to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). A month later, a boat carrying 80 additional shoulder-fired missiles (and rocket launchers) sailed from the coast of Iran to Mogadishu, where they were reportedly delivered to the ICU.



D.I.A Declassified Documents Here

 

[QueEx]

Re: Black Hawk's shadow

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[QueEx]

Re: Black Hawk's shadow

<font size="5"><center>State Department: U.S. supports Ethiopian military</font size></center>

CNN
POSTED: 6:52 p.m. EST, December 26, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. State Department signaled Tuesday that it will support the Ethiopian military operations against Somali Islamist forces.

Ethiopia has had "genuine security concerns," stemming from the rise of Islamists in its eastern neighbor, department spokesman Gonzalo Gallego said.

The spokesman, however, said he had no information on whether the United States has been bolstering the Ethiopian military through delivery of supplies.

The Bush administration has been increasingly alarmed by the growing strength of the Islamic militias, which have reportedly welcomed al Qaeda militants.

The Ethiopian government has no presence in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, and has a limited reach in the south-central Somali town of Baidoa.

A priority U.S. goal in Somalia is the capture of three reputed al Qaeda militants wanted for bombing U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and a Kenya hotel in 2002.

The three are from Sudan, Kenya and the Comoros Islands, located off Africa's east coast.

Al Qaeda militants are operating with "great comfort" in Somalia, Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer said recently.

Washington is concerned about the Islamists' interest in establishing a "Greater Somalia" that would include ethnic Somali regions of Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.

Ethiopia has been backing the Somali government for months while Eritrea has been supporting the Islamists.

A report by a U.N. panel last month said that in addition to Ethiopia and Eritrea, a long list of countries unfriendly to the U.S. such as Yemen, Libya, and Syria, have sent weapons to armed groups in Somalia.

Most of the nations have denied involvement in the shipments, which would violate a United Nations arms embargo against Somalia.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/12/26/us.somalia.ap/index.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: Black Hawk's shadow

<font size="4"><center>Foreign Intercession in Somalia’s War
Could Presage Foreign Free-for-All in Iraq </font size></center>

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

December 26, 2006, 11:10 PM (GMT+02:00)

Ethiopia’s intervention this week to save the weak Somali government from defeat at the hands of Islamist rebels is typical of the apparently incompatible foreign, sectarian, religious and tribal elements involved in its neighbor’s civil war.

Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi says his forces have killed up to 1,000 Islamist fighters. After Ethiopian jets bombed two Somali airports Monday, Dec. 25, including Mogadishu airport where the Islamic militia had set up base, Addis Ababa vowed that within five days its army would clear the Islamic fighters out of every town they have captured since June.

The Ethiopians, whose forces are vastly superior to the Islamic militia in conventional terms, say they are fighting in self-defense against the threat of a holy war.

DEBKAfile’s intelligence and military sources tracking endemic Horn of Africa conflicts report that this statement comes nowhere near representing the complexity of the crisis, for which the UN Security Council has been called into emergency session Tuesday, Dec. 26.

Many of the foreign elements fighting on the side of the Islamic Courts militia were sent to Somalia by Christian-ruled Eritrea to harass its rival Christian power, Ethiopia.

The Eritreans are joined by fighters from pro-Western Muslim nations of the Middle East to help a jihadist militia with strong links to al Qaeda to displace the pro-Western, internationally recognized Somali government.

Some military experts see this sectarian mishmash as a dress rehearsal for the big show should the very powers supporting the Islamist Courts in Somali decide to intervene in Iraq to restore Sunni Arabs to power and cleanse Baghdad of Shiite rule and Iranian influence.

In five days, Ethiopian-backed government forces secured Burhakaba, 160 km west of Mogadishu, the strategically important towns on the Ethiopian border of Beledweyne and Bandiradley, and Dinsoor in central Somalia. They are also in control of Baidoa, to which the government was driven by the Islamist advance on Mogadishu.

The full-scale Ethiopian push this week was preceded by a small vanguard of special forces which have been operating in Somalia for the past six months.

Present there now is an Ethiopian armored division of 15,000 men with 120 tanks, mobile cannons and air force jets. From Monday, air strikes were carried out against Islamic bases across Somalia. The United Islamic Courts Militia’s fighters are reported to be in disordered retreat to the capital.

According to our military sources, the United Islamic Courts Militia consist of thousands of <u>Christian and Muslim Eritreans</u>, <u>Syrians</u>, <u>Libyans</u> and <u>Yemenis</u>. <u>Saudi Arabia and Egypt are supplying the United Islamic Courts’s leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys and “defense minister” Sheik Sharif Ahmed with funding and logistical assistance</u>. It is rumored in Mogadishu that Egyptian intelligence officers are advising them on how to contend with Ethiopian armed forces.

How the Somali venture will turn out in the long term is hard to predict.

Even if Ethiopia’s military preponderance wins the day, the Islamists may resort to Iraq-style guerrilla warfare and progressively gather popular Somali support among coreligionists and non-Muslims to oust the Christian interloper.

The origins of the conflict hark back to rivalries in the Horn of Africa, which are complicated by broader Muslim Arab resentment of Christian rule in the region.

The Horn’ two predominantly Christian nations, Ethiopia with a population of 73 million and tiny Eritrea with 4.5 million - who are half-and-half Christian and Muslim, are at daggers drawn. Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi and Eritrean president Isaias Afworky are third cousins and sworn enemies.

Their enmity has led them into four major confrontations in four years.

Afworky never accepted Eritrea’s defeat in 2004 at the end of its long war with Ethiopia. He ignited the Somali conflict as part of a grand plan to overcome his military inferiority by guile and subversion. The Eritrean ruler is well regarded by Ethiopia’s largest ethnic tribe, the Oromo, which form 40% of the population. To stir up the Oromo’s secessionist aspirations, the Eritreans established the Oromo Liberation Front-OLF, which Afworky eggs on to fight the Addis Ababa government from a base in the Eritrean capital of Asmara.

Then, five months ago, Afworky persuaded a large group of high-ranking Ethiopian military commanders, members of the Oromo tribe, to defect to Eritrea. He took their advice on ways to topple his third cousin in Addis Ababa and launched three fronts:

1. He laid on a supply of Eritrean arms, funds, logistical assistance and intelligence to the Oromo Liberation Front.

2. He furnished the same assistance to the Ogaden National Liberation Front. This group represents the 1.5 million Muslim tribesmen who inhabit the 200,000-square-kilometer desert region. Ogaden wound up as “Italian Somaliland under Ethiopian Control” (a reminder of the Italian colonizers driven out in World War II), after wars between Somalia and Ethiopia which continued from the 1970s.​

Ethiopia prizes Ogaden as the corridor to its only outlet to the sea at the big port of Djibouti, which sits astride the point where the Indian Ocean converges with the Gulf of Aden, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.

The struggle for control of the strategic Ogaden is never-ending and beats strongly in Ethiopia’s backing for the Somali government against the Islamic Courts militias.

The IUC aspires to establish a Muslim Greater Somalia extending into Ethiopia and Kenya. Addis Ababa’s Christian rulers fear that if the IUC gains power in Somalia and wins control over the Muslim tribes of Ogaden through the militant National Liberation Front, the militia will have the power to sever Ethiopia from its desert corridor to the coast, and establish al Qaeda in bases on the border of Christian Ethiopia.

Afworky backs a third group, the Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front – EPPF, which wages guerrilla warfare against what it calls the “dictatorial, repressive regime of Meles Zenawi in Addis Ababa.” This small group operates in the north in the Emien Gondar and Amhara regions.

All three groups have been primed by the Eritrean president to rise up against his cousin’s regime in Addis Ababa when the Ethiopian army is fully engaged in Somalia. Their mission is to cut his supply lines and force his armed forces to withdraw from Somalia in order to put down their uprisings and save his regime.

Afworky is gambling heavily on this plan. Asked if he is not afraid of a Somali Islamist victory bringing al Qaeda to his own doorstep, he replies unhesitatingly that American and French military forces are deployed between Eritrea’s borders and Somalia for the very purpose of combating al Qaeda’s penetration of the Horn of Africa.

And what has led the canny Saudi king Abdullah, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi along with Syria and Yemen to dip their hands in the Somali cauldron and back the radical Islamic Courts revolutionaries? Their involvement in the Horn of Africa harks back to old enmities between the Muslim nations of the region and Christian Ethiopia, which also controls the sources of the Nile. However, their willingness - even after 9/11 and five years into the global war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Europe and Asia - to range behind the Somali Islamists and let them establish a new al Qaeda stronghold, is not good news for Washington. It could be an advance signal of their intentions to step into the Iraq conflict if the fate of the Sunni Arab minority is at stake.

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1246

 

[QueEx]

Re: Black Hawk's shadow

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[QueEx]

Re: Black Hawk's shadow

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[GET YOU HOT]

Re: Black Hawk's shadow

Looks like you beat me to updating this story, I have this to add. Looks like U.S. has picked an "easier" Islamic country to target this time...

US holds talks with Islamic courts

Islamic court's Sharif Ahmed's support is crucial for peace in Somalia [AFP]

The US ambassador to Kenya has held talks with a key leader of Somalia's Islamic courts movement to urge him to have his supporters renounce violence.

US officials said Michael Ranneberger met Sharif Ahmed in Nairobi, where he has been in the protective custody of the Kenyan authorities since turning himself in.

Details of the meeting were not clear, but Jennifer Barnes, a US embassy spokeswoman, said earlier in the week that the envoy would urge Ahmed to ask his supporters to avoid violence and to support the development of an inclusive government in Somalia.

Ahmed is head of the executive wing of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) in Somalia.

Mohammed Adow, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Somalia, said: "Diplomats have always seen the need for dialogue and national reconciliation to inject some energy into the peace process - Ahmed who led the union is seen as crucial for any dialogue to go ahead."

On Monday, Ali Mohamed Gedi, the Somali prime minister, welcomed the Islamic courts leaders back in Somalia in order to participate in talks aimed at forming an all-inclusive administration in Somalia.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2FB8B2A3-49F5-4D8C-92F5-5C1BD54C027A.htm

 

[QueEx]

Re: Black Hawk's shadow

Looks like U.S. has picked an "easier" Islamic country to target this time...

What was the harder Islamic country ???

QueEx

 

[QueEx]

Re: Black Hawk's shadow

<font size="5"><center>
Ethiopian Forces Start Leaving Somalia </font size></center>

New York Times
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: January 24, 2007

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 23 — The Ethiopian troops who helped install Somalia’s fledging government in Mogadishu, its capital, began to pull out Tuesday, officials from each country said.

Many Somalis say they now fear that a power vacuum will form and that the country will slip back into the lawlessness that has dominated it for much of the past 16 years.

“Why can’t they stay?” asked Muhammad Omar Ali, a milkman in Mogadishu, as he watched truckloads of Ethiopians chug away. “They’re leaving us to the bandits.”

Ethiopia played a pivotal role in rearranging Somalia’s internal politics last month when it sent tanks, jet fighters and thousands of troops to vanquish an increasingly aggressive Islamist movement that ruled most of south-central Somalia. After routing the Islamist army, the Ethiopians paved the way for Somalia’s transitional government, which until then was weak and divided, to take control of the country.

But the Ethiopians always insisted that they would not stay to police Somalia. And though several African countries have mused about sending peacekeepers to help quell Somalia’s volatile mix of warring clans, well-armed thugs and now a growing insurgency, a comprehensive peacekeeping force may be months away.

On Tuesday, 200 Ethiopian soldiers held a short goodbye ceremony at a defunct Somali Air Force base. “We have arrived in Mogadishu in support of the transitional federal government troops,” said an Ethiopian commander. “We have successfully completed our mission. We respect the order of the Ethiopian government to withdraw from Somalia.”

Some Somalis cheered. Others said the equivalent of good riddance.

“Our enemy is finally leaving the country,” grumbled Muhammad Gedi Nur, who was selling second-hand clothes on the street. “Now we can bring back Islamic law.”

Remnants of the Islamist army are suspected of the increasingly frequent attacks on transitional government soldiers and Ethiopian troops. Despite the limited withdrawal that began Tuesday, Ethiopian officials have reassured Somalia’s leaders that many troops would remain until international peacekeepers arrive.

Western diplomats have expressed hope the surrender to the Kenyan authorities last week of Sheik Sharif Ahmed, a moderate leader of the Islamist forces, could be another solution. As a well-respected figure among the Islamists and the influential Hawiye clan, he could help end the insurgency.

On Tuesday, American diplomats said they were eager to talk to him.

“The U.S. ambassador to Kenya plans to meet with Sheik Sharif later this week,” the embassy said. “The ambassador will urge Sheik Sharif to counsel his supporters not to carry out violence and to support the development of an inclusive government.”

Mohammed Ibrahim and Yuusuf Maxamuud contributed reporting from Mogadishu.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/world/africa/24somalia.html?_r=1&oref=login

 

[QueEx]

Re: Black Hawk's shadow

<font size="5"><center>Somali Islamists’ No. 2 Leader
Surrenders in Kenyan Capital </font size></center>

Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the head
of the Islamist Courts Union executive
council, spoke at a news conference in
June in Jowhar, Somalia.


New York Times
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: January 23, 2007

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 22 — The second in command of Somalia’s defeated Islamist forces has surrendered to the Kenyan authorities and is staying at a hotel in Nairobi, Western diplomats and Somali officials said Monday.

Sheik Sharif Ahmed, the head of the Islamic Courts Union executive council, was part of a group of Islamist leaders being hunted down by American and Ethiopian troops in southern Somalia. Described as a moderate Muslim and potential peacemaker, he surfaced at the Kenya-Somalia border in the past week, Somali officials said, and now the Kenyan immigration authorities are deliberating about what to do with him.

“Sheik Sharif is in Nairobi,” said Abdirahman Dinari, spokesman for Somalia’s transitional government. “We are waiting for the next move.”

Several Western diplomats said American officials, who have urged Somalia’s newly empowered government to reconcile with moderate Islamist leaders, were instrumental in arranging Mr. Ahmed’s safe passage to Kenya.

“He decided to come to Kenya only after getting a guarantee from the Americans that he would not be deported” back to Somalia, said a Western diplomat in Nairobi who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He’s been here a week.”

Over the weekend, the BBC broadcast an interview with Michael E. Ranneberger, the American ambassador to Kenya, in which Mr. Ranneberger said, “We certainly have made clear to the T.F.G.,” Somalia’s transitional federal government, “that it needs to talk to all elements, and that includes people such as, for example, Sheik Sharif.”

At that point, Mr. Ahmed, a school-teacher turned religious leader, was still widely believed to be hiding in the marshes of southern Somalia or possibly dead.

On Monday, an American Embassy official denied that the United States played any role in bringing him to Kenya. “We’re not holding or interrogating or protecting him,” she said on condition of anonymity. “We’re not involved in this operation in any way.”

Kenyan officials did not return calls for comment.

European diplomats in Kenya said American officials were playing an increasingly large behind-the-scenes role in Somalia, pursuing an aggressive counterterrorism agenda but also trying to shape Somalia’s political future.

Several Somali leaders seemed to welcome that involvement, saying that Italy, the other Western power in Somalia, had discredited itself by trying to establish a rapport with the Islamists before they were defeated.

Last month, the Islamists attacked Somalia’s transitional government, which was based in Baidoa. What they did not expect was a crushing response from Somalia’s neighbor Ethiopia, which sided with the transitional government because Ethiopian officials viewed the Islamists as a regional threat.

It took all of one week for the Ethiopian-led forces, with approval from American officials, to rout the Islamist army and install the transitional government in Mogadishu, Somalia’s bullet-pocked capital by the sea.

Mogadishu is now loosely controlled by a mix of Ethiopian troops and government soldiers, who are struggling to pacify a population that is armed to the teeth. On Monday, residents said a gun battle between Ethiopian troops and masked men in a crowded livestock market killed seven people, four of them insurgents and three civilians.

Western diplomats said Mr. Ahmed, 42, could be enormously helpful in defusing the violence because he has a devoted following among former Islamist fighters, who are suspected of being the backbone of Somalia’s growing insurgency.

United Nations officials said Mr. Ahmed could be granted political asylum in Kenya or another country in the region, possibly Yemen, so that he can meet with Somalia’s new leaders on neutral soil and map out a path forward.

Abdirizak Adam Hassan, chief of staff for the transitional president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, said that if the Islamic leader renounced violence, he would be welcome back in Somalia. “We’re not after his blood,” he said.

The case is a little different, though, for Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, the Islamists’ top leader. Mr. Aweys is nowhere to be found, and most Somalis believe that he will never turn himself in because American and Ethiopian officials have accused him of being a terrorist.

Mohammed Ibrahim and Yuusuf Maxamuud contributed reporting from Mogadishu.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/world/africa/23somalia.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: U.S. has direct contacts with Somali Islamists

Now Fast Forward to the Present:


<font size="5"><center>Islamists poised to seize Somalia <u>again</u></font size></center>


McClatchy Newspapers
By Shashank Bengali
November 18, 2008


NAIROBI, Kenya — Al Shabaab, a radical Islamist group that U.S. officials say is tied to al Qaida, has methodically seized much of southern Somalia and is poised to take the capital, Mogadishu, as the country's internationally backed government nears collapse.

The rise of al Shabaab — from the Arabic word for "youth" — in many ways represents the very scenario that the Bush administration sought to avoid two years ago, when it quietly backed an invasion by Somalia's neighbor, Ethiopia, to drive a federation of hard-line Islamic courts out of Mogadishu.

The invasion aimed to forestall a Taliban-style regime that could have become an East African haven for jihadists. But diplomats, regional analysts and former Shabaab fighters say that it's fueled a diverse Islamist insurgency that's now stronger and more sophisticated than ever, and seems bent on retaking control of the country.

American officials "are fearful" of a return to hard-line Islamist rule in Somalia, according to one official who wasn't authorized to discuss the subject publicly. "There's no question that (the insurgency) is more violent than it has been in recent history, and we are extremely concerned about that," the U.S. official said.

Of several insurgent factions claiming territory in southern Somalia, the most powerful is unquestionably al Shabaab, whose leaders claim allegiance to Osama bin Laden and rule based on a strict form of sharia, or Islamic law.

In recent months, their forces have been bolstered by the arrival of foreign-trained jihadists and by ready supplies of cash, weapons and mercenaries flowing easily through one of the most lawless and impoverished regions of Africa.

The group has recruited perhaps hundreds of fighters from across the permeable border in Kenya, paying young, jobless Muslim men upward of $100 a month and promising large sums to the families of martyrs, say Kenyan ex-militants.

They're also joined by a small but influential number of jihadists from Arab countries who train the mostly young and inexperienced Somali fighters in suicide bombing and other tactics, the fighters say.

Despite nearly two decades of chaos and militia rule, foreign fighters are a new phenomenon in Somalia and a sign that al Shabaab is "becoming more dangerous," said Richard Barno of the Institute for Security Studies, a South Africa-based think tank. Analysts credit Shabaab's foreign wing with plotting five coordinated car bombings in northern Somalia last month that killed at least 31 people — the worst terrorist strike in the country in recent memory.

Analysts say it's unclear if Shabaab's links to al Qaida are operational or mere bluster, but CIA director Michael Hayden last week identified Somalia as a region where al Qaida was forming new partnerships. In March, the State Department designated al Shabaab as a terrorist organization that included "a number of individuals affiliated with al Qaida" and that "many of its senior leaders . . . trained and fought with al Qaida in Afghanistan."

U.S. officials accuse the group of sheltering suspects in the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 220 people. The Pentagon has launched several airstrikes inside Somalia against suspected terrorists, including Aden Hashi Ayro, a top Shabaab commander and reputed al Qaida operative, who was killed in a U.S. strike in May.

In backing the Ethiopian invasion two years ago, Bush administration officials made similar allegations about leaders of the Islamic courts, including Hassan Dahir Aweys, a hard-liner who commands a militia from his base in neighboring Eritrea. But in a sign of a softer approach this time around, the U.S. official said that American envoys had met with allies of Aweys in recent months.

Aweys's forces have sometimes fought alongside al Shabaab against Ethiopian forces and secular, clan-based militias. In a recent interview with McClatchy, Mukhtar Robow, a Shabaab senior commander, said that he and Aweys "have a common enemy and are pursuing a common goal in the struggle to liberate our country" from Ethiopian forces.

While Robow accused the United Nations and the African Union peacekeeping mission of siding with the Somali government — his fighters have attacked peacekeepers and are suspected of murdering and kidnapping aid workers — he denied a global or anti-American agenda.

But he expressed allegiance to bin Laden's worldview and said that his fighters, if called upon by Islamic militant groups in other countries, would "join them to liberate them from Americans' interference in their affairs."

Meanwhile, Somali leaders have been paralyzed by a bitter power struggle between President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein. With insurgents gaining ground, the dispute could signal "the beginning of the end" for the country's four-year-old transitional government, said Abdikarim Farah, a senior Somali diplomat based in Ethiopia.

Last week Shabaab forces overran the strategic port of Merka, 60 miles south of Mogadishu, and a smaller town 10 miles southwest of the capital — in both cases without firing a shot.

In Shabaab-controlled areas, the imposition of sharia law has brought sometimes-gruesome consequences. Last month in the southern port of Kismayo, a 13-year-old girl who reported being raped by three men was accused of adultery and stoned to death in a stadium in front of about 1,000 spectators, according to Amnesty International.

"Their agenda is to control the whole country with sharia. They are in it for power," said Issa Abdi Ismail, a rail-thin Kenyan who joined al Shabaab this year for the promise of a $150 monthly salary. He quit about two months ago after commanders sent him to train with a foreign jihadist to become a suicide bomber and attack Ethiopian troops in the government-controlled town of Baidoa.

"I was told that even if you kill one person, you will have sacrificed yourself for God," Ismail said at a cafe in the teeming Somali enclave of Eastleigh, in Nairobi. "I had joined just for the money. I could not go through with that."

Despite the influence of foreign fighters, however, analysts say that al Shabaab can only take Mogadishu by forming alliances with other Islamist militias, which could weaken their influence. Somali officials say that al Shabaab's strict version of sharia is unpopular among other groups and everyday Somalis, many of whom opposed the Islamic courts for similar reasons in 2006.

"Tensions between the groups are there already. Once you take out the hard-core members, there are divisions among the foot soldiers," said Abdisaid M. Ali, an analyst and former Somali cabinet secretary.

Questions also surround Ethiopia's plan to withdraw the several thousand troops still guarding government sites in Mogadishu. Experts believe that al Shabaab and its allies are waiting for Ethiopian forces to leave to avoid a bloody battle for Mogadishu, but Ethiopia has been vague about a timetable for withdrawal.

Already, more than 1.3 million Somalis have fled their homes since 2007, with many living in squalid encampments on the outskirts of cities and in Kenya, the United Nations says. Some 3.2 million people — more than half the country — need urgent humanitarian assistance, a number that relief agencies say will surely rise with the next round of fighting.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/255/story/56097.html

 

[GET YOU HOT]

A good dose of Special Ops is needed...

 

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<font size="5"><center>
Welcome to Somaliland,
the nicer part of crumbling country</font size><font size="4">

Breakaway Somali region stable as brother nation unravels</font size></center>

Cars clog a main road in Hargeisa, capital of the break-
away region of Somaliland.



McClatchy Newspapers
By Shashank Bengali
May 13, 2009


HARGEISA, Somalia — It might surprise you to learn that Somalia — that post-apocalyptic shell of a nation where Islamist insurgents, clan warlords and now pirates hold sway over a helpless government — has some nice parts, too.

In Hargeisa, a visitor can walk the asphalt roads at dusk and freely breathe the sharp mountain air. The street markets are busy and boisterous, and hanging out there isn't likely to get you killed. Cell phone companies advertise mobile Internet service and the good hotels have wireless hot spots.

If this doesn't feel like Somalia, residents say that's because it's not. This is Somaliland, a northern former British protectorate that broke away from chaotic southern Somalia in 1991, established an admirably stable government and hoped never to look back.

No country has recognized Somaliland's independence, however. The argument has always been that to do so would further destabilize Somalia, even as Somalia seems to be destabilizing well enough on its own.

So for now, this quiet slice of land along the volatile Gulf of Aden is an undeniable, if very reluctant, piece of Somalia.

A territory of 5 million people, Somaliland is trying to be a good regional citizen, hosting tens of thousands of refugees from southern Somalia and, lately, trying and imprisoning pirates, which few governments anywhere have been eager to do.

At least 26 men are serving time in Somaliland prisons for piracy. Last month, a European warship stopped nine men who were attempting to hijack a Yemeni vessel but allowed them to flee in a lifeboat. The would-be pirates washed ashore in Somaliland, where police and the scrappy coast guard, which patrols a 600-mile coastline with two speedboats and a tiny fleet of motorized skiffs, chased them down.

"We are patient. We always feel like we are getting close" to recognition, said Abdillahi Mohamed Duale, the polished foreign minister, betraying just a trace of exasperation in his near-flawless English. "Time will put Somaliland where we belong."

Yes, the territory has a foreign minister, along with liaison offices — don't call them diplomatic missions — in a handful of countries including the United States. It has a president and a bicameral legislature, as well as feisty opposition parties. It issues its own currency — crisp bills printed in the United Kingdom — and its own passports and visas.

It can't make deals with other countries for development projects, though, and no international banks have opened here. The economy remains mostly pre-modern and farm-based.

So you can understand Duale's frustration: While Somalia is a country without a functioning government, Somaliland is a noncountry with a reasonably functioning government.

The president, Dahir Riyale Kahin, won the first free elections in 2003 and was rewarded last year with a visit by the then-ranking U.S. diplomat for Africa, then-Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer. This year, however, Riyale has sparred with opposition leaders over the timing of elections, which have been postponed twice and now are set for October.

Some foreign officials are worried that the young democracy is backsliding.

"They were a model for Somalia, in our minds, but now they're having significant problems," said a Western diplomat who closely follows Somalia and who wasn't authorized to be quoted by name.

Experts regard the spat as temporary and expect foreign governments to keep funding Somaliland-based relief efforts and political reform projects, but Somaliland's limbo status appears more enduring. While the United Nations urges support for the transitional Somali government in the south, African countries are leery of encouraging their own secessionist movements and the United States is unwilling to go out on a limb for the obscure little territory.

"Governments don't want to be involved in the politics" of Somaliland's independence, said Patrick Duplat of Refugees International, a Washington-based advocacy group. "But they have to be cognizant of the fact that it's the only operating government in this place."

From colonial times, Somaliland took a different path. In the 19th-century scrum over Africa, Britain acquired the territory mainly to supply its more important garrison in Aden, across the sea in Yemen.

Relatively few British expatriates settled here, leaving tribes and institutions intact, while southern Somalia became a full-fledged colony of Italy, complete with Italianate architecture and banana farms to supply the home country.

The British and Italian territories were joined at independence to form the Somali Republic, but in 1991, with the southern-based regime verging on collapse, a rebel government in Somaliland declared itself autonomous. After two years of fighting, a new government emerged that melded traditional clan structures with Western-style separation of powers, a hybrid system that some experts have called a prototype for the rest of Somalia.

Contrast that, Duale said, with the hundreds of millions of dollars the world has poured into Somalia's feeble transitional government, including $213 million pledged last month to bolster security forces and African Union peacekeepers.

"It's pure hypocrisy," Duale said. "You have here in Somaliland a nation-building process that didn't require massive expense by others. And yet we have everything the international community preaches: self-reliance, inclusiveness, stability."

The troubles down south have spilled over, with more than 75,000 displaced Somalis taking shelter in Somaliland. On Oct. 29, coordinated suicide bombings struck the presidential residence, a U.N. compound and an Ethiopian political office in Hargeisa, reportedly killing 30 people.

The attack was immediately blamed on Islamist militants who are battling for control of Somalia, a reminder that for all its advantages, Somaliland remains yoked to that troubled land to the south.

"Everybody was scared that we could be targeted so easily," said Mohammed Isak, a marketing manager for a mobile phone company. "You cannot enjoy peace while your neighbor is burning."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/68111.html

 

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