Probably xalimo, yo, word up!

Garoowe:-Waxaa maanta ay Maamulka Puntland ay gaar siiyeen dalka Jabuuti deeq xoolo ah oo ay ugu deeqeen ciidanka fadhiya jiida hore ee buuraha Gabla halkaas oo ay isku hor fadhiyaan labada ciidan ee Jabuuti iyo Eratareey Waxaa sidoo kale maanta ka dhacay xarunta Maamul gobaleedka Puntland ee Garoowe Banaanbax looga soo horjeedo Eratareey halkaas oo lagu gubay calanka Eratareeya http://www.halgan.net/view_article.php?articleid=9466

^^What would be the difference between Nike and a brand named after an Ancient Hindu God? @Castro, do u dress sumthing like this?

greatings saxiib, wlc!

If Poles go through cawa dhaloyinka dhadher bey la dhac-dhacayan! You should've seen them last week habeenki ! Emperor, good man, France all the way!

Northerner, I edited my post! I know the Arabs can get rowdy and dadkana beryahan dambe they are scared for their lives

Northerner, is ilaali ninyo!

http://shabelle.net/somali/2008/06/16/aabaha-dhalay-gudoomiyaha-degmada-huriwaa-oo-maamulka-gobolka- banaadir-iyo-dowlada

He's just tryna make himself relevant(like a real president) and condemn Eritrea war like the IGAD mecenaries did! I never heard Riyaale criticising the wars and attrocities in the SOmali Galbeed or Somalia. In fact, according to his cohorts, " Ethiopia has a right in ay nabada sugato". This latest outburst is just another example of sheep following the crowd and condemning(not because of SOmalinimo or Brotherhood) Eritrea, in order to toe the Line of the US admin and the Ethiopian admin. It's like when he said, "ohh, we are the only Muslim State to have fighting terrorists in our constituion". Next thing they might say, "Riyaale, the commander in Chief, is sending his airforce to defend Djibouti Brothers, lol!

More PR? Rape and Other Sexual Violence Human Rights Watch research found that the Ethiopian armed forces have been responsible for numerous instances of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls in conflict-affected areas of Somali Region. Women taken into military custody as suspected ONLF spies or for providing the insurgents military support are frequently raped or otherwise sexually assaulted while being transported to or held in military camps. Soldiers have also assaulted and raped women and girls in urban areas as well as when they are collecting firewood, water, and other vital supplies in rural areas that the ENDF considers “closed.” Human Rights Watch is unaware of any instances since 2007 in which soldiers have been disciplined or punished for committing acts of sexual violence. Rape and other sexual violence is prohibited under the laws of war and is a war crime.122 When committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, it is a crime against humanity.123 Rape of Women in Military Custody Human Rights Watch has documented cases of rape of female detainees by government soldiers at military bases in Wardheer, Dhagahbur, Kabridahar, Jijiga, Shilabo, Duhun, and Fiiq towns, and many smaller military bases in the conflict-affected zones, indicating that rape is a widespread abuse in the region. According to many of the women and men interviewed by Human Rights Watch, rape of female detainees regularly occurs in military custody and often involves senior military officials, including base commanders, and interrogators. In June 2007 a 38-year-old woman was detained by soldiers as she entered Dhagahbur town from her home in Kariir to sell some goats. She was taken by the soldiers to the brigade headquarters. She told Human Rights Watch that during her 25-day detention, soldiers had raped her on five separate occasions before she was transferred to a police station.124 In June 2007, soldiers arrested a 17-year-old student from her home in Duhun, in Duhun wereda, Fiiq zone, accusing her of being an ONLF supporter. The nine soldiers took her to the Duhun military base, where she was detained together with about 15 other female students in a dark hole in the ground. The soldiers beat her on the first night of her detention, and then beat and raped her the second night. During her three-month detention, she was raped at least 13 times. According to the student, most of the 40 or so women who were detained at various times during those three months were raped, and the camp commander himself participated in the rapes: Every night, they took all of us girls to [interrogations]. They would separate us and beat us. The second time they took me, they raped me. It is hard to talk about, a man who is more powerful than you can do whatever he wants to you, so they violated me and raped me as they wanted. All three of the men raped me, consecutively. Then we were returned to the hole. I was in a lot of pain and there was no doctor, until today I have not seen a doctor. I was held in the prison for three months, and raped on at least 12 other occasions, by different groups of soldiers. The commander of the base also participated in the rapes and beatings. We were all raped—the girls and the mothers. They brought new girls and women all the time, at least 40 girls and women were detained during the three months I was there.125 On May 23, 2007, the day after fighting in the area between the army and ONLF forces, the soldiers detained some villagers, including two women and a 16-year-old girl from Toon-Eli village in Korahe zone and took them to the Dhuumo-Dhumodle army base in Kabridahar. The two women and girl were detained there with another nine women, many of them relatives. Soldiers raped at least seven of the 12 women. On the night of May 29-30, soldiers executed Sahan Hussein and Khadar Ali Hussein in front of the other female detainees by strangling them with ropes after forcing them to confess to being ONLF members.126 In addition to these cases, based on victims’ accounts, many other former detainees reported witnessing rapes or seeing strong evidence of rape, such as women and girls who returned to their cells with ripped clothes, and bleeding from their private parts. A 19-year-old university student studying in Addis Ababa who was detained in Dhagahbur town in May 2007 when he returned home for a holiday, and kept for two months at a military base there, witnessed several such cases. During his detention, he saw a severely injured 23-year-old woman who was suffering from a swollen belly and an injured right arm after soldiers apparently raped her. She died from her injuries while at the base.127 A 30-year-old shopkeeper from Wardheer town was detained from early May until July 28, 2007 at the “Transport Tanks” military base in Wardheer town, accused of providing economic support to the ONLF. He told Human Rights Watch of several cases of rape of women detainees that he personally witnessed: The women were accused of supporting the ONLF, cooking food for the fighters and spying for the ONLF. Most of the women were being raped. As we were moved outside our room, I witnessed women who were interrogated and raped. I saw with my own eyes two girls being raped, at different times. We could hear their screams and could see these things with our own eyes. One girl was raped by five soldiers one night I was taken out, I was handcuffed at the time, and another time two girls were being raped just meters away from me. All the time when they interviewed the girls, they used to force them to undress themselves. Six soldiers were with the two girls when I saw them being raped; the interrogator was there also. When the women refused to answer the questions, the interrogator allowed the soldiers to rape them.128 In mid-May 2007, patrolling army soldiers detained a group of women and men from a small, unnamed nomadic settlement about two kilometers south of Shilabo town. The group was divided into several groups and told they would be taken to the military base in Shilabo for questioning. One of the women described how soldiers had taken her and another 10 women into a nearby forest, where they were beaten and raped before being left for dead: Before we reached the town, the soldiers started beating us with thick sticks. They beat me very hard until I fell to the ground. This time while lying on the ground I was raped. I don’t know how many men raped me. Other women were raped too. It is a woodland area. We were about ten women, all of us were raped. After the rape, some of the soldiers continued beating women, others were strangled with a rope but they didn’t die. In our group, we were shot. I was hit behind the left shoulder with a bullet. The army left us in the woodland. We were found by townspeople who took us to the town.129 Sexual Violence against Women Collecting Wood and Water On May 8, 2007, army soldiers detained a 20-year-old charcoal seller from Kabridahar town while she was collecting wood near the military base in the Bam Burat area. The soldiers accused her of spying for the ONLF, and immediately began beating her with the wood she had collected and jumping on her body. At least three soldiers raped the woman. She lost consciousness from the beatings and the repeated rapes, and woke up nine days later at the military base in Kabridahar. After she was detained a month, her uncle managed to secure her release from the military base. She required extensive medical treatment for her wounds.130 In July 2007 patrolling soldiers from the Garbo base raped two young women on consecutive days as they went to fetch water from wells located a day’s walk from their homes in Fiiq zone. The first woman was detained by the soldiers around noon as she left the wells; two soldiers raped her and threw her off a cliff, causing her serious injuries. The second woman, who had just given birth to her first child, was detained around the same time the next day, and raped by three soldiers. Angry villagers protested by throwing stones at the army encampment. When the soldiers responded with gunfire, the villagers fled.131 Sexual Violence against Women Collecting Wood and Water On May 8, 2007, army soldiers detained a 20-year-old charcoal seller from Kabridahar town while she was collecting wood near the military base in the Bam Burat area. The soldiers accused her of spying for the ONLF, and immediately began beating her with the wood she had collected and jumping on her body. At least three soldiers raped the woman. She lost consciousness from the beatings and the repeated rapes, and woke up nine days later at the military base in Kabridahar. After she was detained a month, her uncle managed to secure her release from the military base. She required extensive medical treatment for her wounds.130 In July 2007 patrolling soldiers from the Garbo base raped two young women on consecutive days as they went to fetch water from wells located a day’s walk from their homes in Fiiq zone. The first woman was detained by the soldiers around noon as she left the wells; two soldiers raped her and threw her off a cliff, causing her serious injuries. The second woman, who had just given birth to her first child, was detained around the same time the next day, and raped by three soldiers. Angry villagers protested by throwing stones at the army encampment. When the soldiers responded with gunfire, the villagers fled

More PR against the TPLF Soldiers : quote:"The soldiers came to Aleen, after they burned down Lahelow. Then they burned Aleen. We were there at the time. The soldiers arrived and ordered the people out of their homes. They gathered all of the people together. Then the commander ordered the village burned. The commander told us, ‘I have told you already to leave these small villages,’ and then they forced us out. Then they burned down all the homes. The houses are just huts, so it is easy to burn them." – Villager, September 23, 2007 quote:"I was taken away with two men, Hassan Abdi Abdullahi and Ahmed Gani Guled. First, they pulled ropes around the necks of the two men and pulled in opposite directions, and both fell down. They put me in a ditch while they were strangling the other two. One soldier tried to strangle me with the metal stick used for cleaning the gun [by pushing it down on my throat], but I twisted his finger until he released me. Then two other soldiers came and they put a rope around my neck and started pulling. That is the last thing I remember, until I woke up, still in the ditch. A naked body was on top of me, it was Ahmed Gani Guled, who was dead. I couldn't move out of the ditch until I was found by some women who came to the waterhole." – Ridwan Hassan-rage Sahid, October 30, 2007 quote:"They started beating me with the backs of their AK-47 guns. They hit me once with the gun in my face, and then started beating me. They also hit me with the gun barrel in my teeth, and broke one of my teeth. Then they started beating me with a fan belt on my back and my feet. It lasted for more than one hour. Then they tied both my legs and lifted me upside down to the ceiling with a rope, and kept beating me more, saying I had to confess. For two months, we underwent this same ordeal, being taken from our rooms at night and being beaten and tortured." – Thirty-one-year-old shopkeeper, September 20, 2007 quote:"They wanted to intimidate the rest of us, so they brought the two girls who they said were the strongest ONLF supporters. They made the rest of us watch while they killed the two girls. First they tried to get them to confess, saying they would kill them otherwise. Then they shot both of them with their guns. Their names were Faduma Hassan, 17, and Samsam Yusuf, 18. Both were students." – Student, September 23, 2007 quote:"We have a well in Qoriley which is surrounded by wire. The army has prohibited us from using it, so you have to sneak in at night. All these things have been imposed on us this year. At nighttime, we will try and get some water to store in our houses. But if the soldiers see you are fetching water, they can kill you." – Villager, September 22, 2007

And he's gonna get more money and arms as thank you for the job he's done! Oh yeah, and apparently, they'll give money to feed the starving(mainly Muslims) of Ethiopia!

Originally posted by Abtigiis & Tolka: It is not who put up the bst argument here that matters. It is that CL oo kale iyo waa dadka Bernand Shaw, Luther King, Sheakespeare, Jefferson, iyo hebel baa saa yidhi wax weyn u arka!! That is what they think being knowledgeable. I met their types on many occassions. Shekepeare wasn no more than Xassen Sheikh Mumin or Hadrawi, waa gabadha!! quote:War maxaa foodleey gaaladu wareerisay meesha joogta!

war ninyahow were u celebrating ila Fridaydii? ps. I'm still backing France to win the tournament, if not, then my second pick Croatia is doing just fine

Originally posted by Abu_Geeljire: quote:Originally posted by Keyz 1-8-7: ^^^^Absolute waste of a transfer, I thought the guy had more sense. He had the pick of all the big clubs in Europe but he plumped for the money. Darren Bent Part II.... Modric could become one of the best players Spurs ever signed, that is, if he can adjust to the premiership! Modric, my favourite player, is doing well in the Euros and he'll give the Turkish MID a runaround in the quarters!

http://www.hiiraan.com/op2/2008/jun/peace_nabad.aspx

A response(without a name, probably written by TPLF apologist) to Galloway: http://hiiraan.com/news2/2008/Jun/drama_queen_george_galloway_babbles_about_somalia.aspx Or perhaps we can say Drama King. The infamous British MP George Galloway is at it again blabbering about things he doesn’t know about. It seems like this guy looks at all conflicts around the world and throws random dots to connect all problems back to America,

Hardly suprising!

From Jail to Jihad Reporter Amil Khan uncovers the radicalisation and recruitment of young prisoners to jihadist Islam. tnight@8

It was 2-1....... I went to bray maghrib and then I come back 3-2 to Turkey! Cech flopped it, right at the end,after playing so well for so long! It seems Chelsea have slippery hands as well as slippery feet! p.s Croatia and Turkey will be a good game!

health and fitness how about Business and Investment forum?

I wouldn't say that faction is toothless. Sheikh Shariff is a hugely popular man, and thus very influential in Somali Politics. Americans, UN and Asmara alliance all recognize this. And,certainly his group will have more sway and a baragining tool if the Ethiopian troops leave. That is, vis-a-vis the groups that don't want UN troops. Gerry Adams and Mcguiness signed a peace deal in Northern Ireland with the Unionists,despite the protests and calls of "treachery" by the other armed wings and more ideological members of the IRA. Though, it does seem that this group that signed the deal only thought about the one thing: removal of Ethiopian troops! In their rush and zeal to see this happen, they've conceeded many things(under pressure) and made a great compromise with regards to the demands of the resistance groups, which they claimed to represent! Hence why the deal seems like it was written by the Ethiopian Ambassador in Djibouti. Whether or not they will succeed remains to be seen.

On June 9, United Nations special representative to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, announced that the second round of peace talks in Djibouti between Somalia's internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) and a faction of the opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (A.R.S.) had resulted in an unexpected agreement. Just a day earlier, Ould Abdallah had "suspended" the talks, saying that the international diplomats attending them could not be "held hostage" by "personality disputes," and that it was "impossible to prolong negotiations indefinitely because of budgetary constraints." At that time, the two sides seemed to be hopelessly deadlocked over the Ethiopian military occupation of Somalia, with the A.R.S. demanding that a timetable be set for an Ethiopian withdrawal, and the T.F.G. - backed by the United States - insisting that the Ethiopians had to stay until they were replaced by an international peacekeeping force, in order to prevent a "security vacuum." The eleven-point agreement represented a victory for the T.F.G. and its Western , working through the U.N., and a capitulation by the diplomatic faction of the A.R.S. led by its executive chair, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad, and the head of its Central Committee, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, who ended up accepting the conditions of their former adversaries. The capitulation of the A.R.S. is inscribed in paragraphs 7b and 7c of the agreement . The former states that "within a period of 120 days of the signing of this agreement the TFG will act in accordance with the decision that has already been taken by the Ethiopian Government to withdraw its troops from Somalia after the deployment of a sufficient number of UN forces." Except for the four-month timetable, which is dependent on the unlikely deployment of a U.N. "stabilization mission," paragraph 7b replicates the T.F.G.'s original negotiating position. Paragraph 7c states that "the ARS shall, through a solemn public statement cease and condemn all acts of armed violence in Somalia and dissociate itself from any armed groups or individuals that do not adhere to the terms of this Agreement," including a ninety-day renewable cease-fire that would begin in early July. This provision severs the A.R.S.'s diplomatic faction from its military faction, which has been making gains on the ground in its insurgency against the Ethiopian and T.F.G. forces, and was opposed to the Djibouti talks, depriving the diplomatic faction of bargaining leverage and making it dependent on the West, whose strategy was to split the A.R.S. in order to "isolate" its military wing; that is, the diplomatic faction of the A.R.S. has been co-opted. What made the A.R.S. concede has not yet been reported. The A.R.S.'s military faction says that the diplomatic faction had made a secret deal with the West before the second round of the Djibouti talks began, and that its apparent uncompromising behavior was merely a charade. Whatever the case may be, the agreement has altered the configuration of power in Somalia, bringing to the surface the conflict that structured the Djibouti talks. The Configuration of Power in Somalia In order to grasp the structure of the Djibouti talks and their outcome, it is necessary to understand that neither the T.F.G. nor the A.R.S.'s diplomatic faction holds significant power in Somalia; the T.F.G. is militarily weak, lacks domestic legitimacy and is dependent for its survival on Ethiopian forces and meager financial support from Western powers and the U.N.; and the A.R.S.'s diplomatic faction gains its credibility from the successes on the ground of its military faction. The present configuration of political power in Somalia results from the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in December, 2006, which was backed by Washington and ousted the Islamic Courts movement, which is now the dominant element in the A.R.S., from control over most of southern and central Somalia. Both Addis Ababa and the Western powers had hoped that the military defeat of the Courts would eliminate them as a significant factor in Somalia's politics, but that scenario proved to be overly optimistic as Courts militias joined by fighters from dissident clans mounted a persistent armed insurgency against the Ethiopian occupation that the latter was unable to quell. By the autumn of 2007, the opposition to the T.F.G. and the occupation, composed of the Courts movement, dissident T.F.G. parliamentarians, some ex-warlords and figures from the Somali diaspora, had formed the A.R.S., which due to its politically diverse composition achieved consensus only on the aim of removing the Ethiopians from Somalia. As the insurgency gained momentum through 2007, the T.F.G. split into factions centered on the rivalry between its president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad, and its prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, paralyzing the transitional institutions. By the end of 2007, the Western powers realized that their policy of backing the T.F.G. and the occupation unequivocally was failing, and they engineered the removal of Gedi and his replacement by Nur "Adde" Hassan Hussein who committed to a new policy of seeking "reconciliation" with the opposition while insisting that the occupation be maintained unless it was replaced by a robust international peacekeeping force. Through 2008, the insurgency has gained momentum, taking control of territory in all of Somalia's regions south of the autonomous sub-state of Puntland, to the point that some local media claim that Courts and allied militias currently control most of Somalia's countryside. Although it is familiar to most readers, the preceding thumbnail sketch of Somalia's recent political history was presented to make it clear that the country's present political configuration is not determined by the T.F.G. or the diplomatic faction of the A.R.S., but by the Western powers, led by Washington and working through the U.N., and the insurgency, which is backed by the military faction of the A.R.S. Once the Western powers succeeded in installing Nur Adde as prime minister, they became the protagonists in Somalia's politics. As the insurgents gained momentum, they became the antagonists, and are now arguably the protagonists. The Djibouti talks can be understood as the central element of the Western powers' current strategy of attempting to isolate the insurgency by splitting off the diplomatic faction of the A.R.S. from its military faction, which is simply a case of Washington's approach to conflicts throughout the Muslim world; for example the isolation of Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iraqi al-Qaeda and the Sadrists in Iraq, and - on a state level - Iran and Syria. That strategy has not been conspicuously successful anywhere that it has been applied; it serves as Washington's compromise between direct military intervention, which it lacks the resources and domestic support to undertake, and negotiations with its opponents, which it is unwilling to pursue. The strategy of the Courts component of the insurgency, which is made up of the internationalist Islamic revolutionary al-Shabaab movement, which functions in relative independence from the A.R.S., and more nationalist-Islamist forces associated with the A.R.S., is to expel the Ethiopians from Somalia by force and to create an Islamic state based on Shari'a law in the country by successively detaching local administrations from allegiance to the T.F.G. and facilitating "independent" administrations or Islamic courts in their place. It is to be expected that the military faction of the A.R.S. saw the Djibouti talks as an effort by the West to derail the insurgency and that its leaders judged the diplomatic faction to be "traitors" for entering them. The Consequences of the Agreement Although the West has apparently succeeded in detaching the diplomatic faction of the A.R.S. from its military faction, it is likely that the West has won a pyrrhic victory. Garowe Online reported that the June 9 agreement between the T.F.G. and A.R.S. had come about after foreign powers attending the conference as observers, including the U.S., Great Britain and France, had applied pressure after Ould Abdallah had announced that the talks had broken down. If that is the case, which is likely, then, just as they had when they engineered Gedi's replacement by Nur Adde, the West has become responsible for the fate of the agreement. Indeed, the Djibouti talks were entirely structured and financed by external powers and left little space for Somalis to "solve their problems themselves," which Ould Abdallah repeatedly says that they must do. The T.F.G. and A.R.S. delegations were treated to "seminars" in which they were lectured on "conflict resolution" by foreign experts, as Ould Abdallah attempted to bring them together in face-to-face talks and wring a "joint statement" out of them. Western powers, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, the African Union, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Conference and the European Union were a pervasive presence until the Ethiopian ambassador to Somalia walked into a seminar and refused to leave, provoking a walkout by the A.R.S., which was brought back only by an agreement to bar all foreign states, although not international and regional organizations, from further meetings. On June 8, A.R.S. delegate chief Abdirahman Abdi Shakur complained that there was "a lot of meddling" in the negotiations. The decisive importance of the West was signalled by the chief negotiators for the T.F.G. and A.R.S., Ahmad Abdisalan and Abdul Rahman Abdishakur Warsame, in their comments on the agreement. Echoing Ould Abdallah, Abdisalan said that if the agreement is implemented, the "international community," especially the U.S. and European members of the United Nations Security Council "will be in the position to assist us to move forward," including facilitating the deployment of an international stabilization force. Putting another spin on the same point, Warsame said, "If the international community puts pressure on Ethiopians to leave and deploys an acceptable international force, then we will have a successful agreement." It is not likely, however, that the West will rise to the occasion. Washington welcomed the agreement and urged the parties to implement it, but added that "the United States will give careful consideration to the proposal [for a stabilization force] in consultation with the Security Council," which is far from a serious commitment; the West is signalling that it will stay on the sidelines, waiting to see if a cease-fire takes hold. The depth of Western commitment to its own policies is, in any case, doubtful. As the Djibouti talks deadlocked, the speaker of Somalia's transitional parliament, Sheikh Adan Madobe, informed legislators in the country's provisional capital Baidoa that the government had no money to pay their salaries, because donor powers had not provided the United Nations Development Program with the necessary funds to do so. Is it plausible to expect that the Western donor powers will finance reconstruction and redevelopment in Somalia, which is a central aspiration of the agreement between the T.F.G. and the diplomatic faction of the A.R.S.? As for a robust stabilization force, the African Union repeatedly complains that its under-staffed and under-funded peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) in Somalia's official capital Mogadishu has not received adequate financial and logistical support from the "international community." If the West does not follow through, the split that it provoked in the A.R.S. is likely to backfire by delegitimizing political opposition and strengthening the insurgency. The response of the A.R.S.'s military faction and the commanders of the insurgency in the field was a pledge to continue and intensify the armed struggle. On June 10, the A.R.S.'s military faction issued a statement announcing that "the Djibouti exercise has no validity and shall not be binding on the A.R.S. and the Somali people." The major public figure in the military faction, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who shared leadership of the Courts movement with Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad, criticized the Djibouti agreement in an interview with al-Jazeera, saying that it did not provide for an Ethiopian withdrawal, was based on power sharing with "an agent government which led to [Ethiopian] aggression," and envisioned international forces that would "implement what Ethiopia could not implement." Aweys concluded that the agreement meant that what Ethiopia "claimed in the past has now been legalized for them." The deputy chair of the A.R.S., Zakariya Mohamed Haji Abdi, announced that he had assumed interim chairmanship of the Alliance in place of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad, and that the A.R.S. Central Committee would meet in mid-June to formally remove Sharif due to his "betrayal of A.R.S. principles." By splitting the A.R.S., the West has "isolated" the insurgency and, as a consequence, has left its military faction to function unchecked by any tempering influence of a political wing. If the diplomatic faction of the A.R.S. had a broad popular base and was stronger than its military faction, that result might have been in the West's interest, but the opposite is the case. The insurgency will not honor the cease-fire agreement, which means that violent conflict will continue in Somalia and that Washington will not find conditions favorable to supporting an international stabilization mission. Addis Ababa, which is being worn down by the insurgency, will be constrained by donor powers to continue its occupation, the T.F.G. will continue to be a notional government without domestic legitimacy and the capacity to function, and the A.R.S.'s diplomatic wing will be stranded without a base and bargaining leverage. That, at least, is the most likely scenario. Although the military faction of the A.R.S. claims alternately that its diplomatic faction were dupes of a Western conspiracy or outright traitors, the truth is more complex. The non-Islamist components of the A.R.S. were always in favor of diplomacy and Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad's faction of the Courts movement was reformist and nationalist, and was willing to embrace political pluralism. A split in the A.R.S., however, did not seem to be inevitable. In a June 4 interview with the Mareeg website, Aweys denied that "an anti-Sheikh Sharif meeting" was being held and commented that it was acceptable for A.R.S. members in Djibouti "to bring goodness to Somalia, if they can." He added quickly, however, that if they "followed Ould Abdallah's script, the A.R.S. would decide," and that is what happened. To repeat, the reasons why the diplomatic faction of the A.R.S. made its last-minute reversal in Djibouti remain unreported; if there is anything beneath the surface, beyond a threat by the West to wash its hands of Somalia, it will become manifest over the next month of preparation for the "cease-fire." On June 12, in an interview with al-Jazeera, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad attempted to minimize the rift between the diplomatic and military factions of the A.R.S., saying that "we are carrying out a liberation operation now"; through negotiations, to settle on a timetable for Ethiopian withdrawal from Somalia. He argued that "the whole resistance supports negotiations because fighting is intended to find a solution via negotiations; that is what happened, and negotiations are ongoing. What the whole resistance wants is to remove the Ethiopian forces." Those comments, however, do not address the cease- fire provision of the Djibouti agreement. As it stands with the information available, the West has lost a possible bridge to the military faction of the A.R.S. and has co-opted a low-value and wasting asset through its strategy of isolation. The Djibouti agreement is a pyrrhic victory for the West. Report Drafted By: Dr. Michael A. Weinstein, Professor of Political Science, Purdue University weinstem@purdue.edu

War Northener, was gwanin, saxiib, in Sheffield? Seems like ciyaalki are chewing down, bruv: quote:A recent survey found that 76% of respondents use more khat in the UK than in Somalia; in Sheffield, 59% of young Somalis chew khat! Also, I don't think Khat is banned( as the quote below implies) in Ethiopia. Ethiopia wa hoyadi khatka! quote:In February 2005 during the passage of the Drugs Act 2005, the government discussed making khat a controlled substance. They heard how it is banned in the USA, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Uganda, Ethiopia and Madagascar, to name but a few.

http://hiiraan.com/news2/2008/Jun/conservatives_will_ban_khat.aspx