^^^^ This is getting ridiculous. This post is dangerously bordering on a complaint and it will probably be deleted. I second SB's statement. If you can't stand Duke, don't read him. If you can't stand the TFG, write to your congressman.

Ordinary people says: No problems with Ethio troops LOL.

Fugitives are forced to pay to shelter in the shade Sam Kiley Sunday April 29, 2007 The Guardian During a lull in fighting in Mogadishu yesterday, survivors picked their way through the post-apocalyptic landscape of Somalia's capital, quickly burying bodies. The floors and stairs of the filthy hospitals were crammed with injured civilians and slick with blood. Up to 350,000 refugees from fighting were camped in the bush - easy prey for armed thugs and warlords. Almost two weeks of heavy fighting and indiscriminate shelling between Islamic militia and clan fighters battling Ethiopian and Somali government troops has turned Mogadishu into the front line in what Washington and al-Qaeda both call the 'clash of civilisations'. Somalia's recent agonies are a direct consequence of the American-backed invasion by Ethiopia four months ago to topple Mogadishu's Islamic Courts Union and install the weak and largely secular transitional federal government. But experts say Washington and its allies have driven many to look back on the recent times of Sharia law as a 'golden age' amid signs that warlords are now looking to exploit refugees in a gigantic protection racket. In 1992, after the civil war that deposed the dictator Siad Barre, militia leaders orchestrated the looting of food aid, charged aid agencies for delivering humanitarian assistance and prolonged a famine that claimed 300,000 lives. There are already signs that the transitional federal government is using aid as a weapon - restricting food aid deliveries to hundreds of thousands of civilians, who are also being charged to shelter under trees on the road out of the capital to Afgoye, 30km away. According to the European Union's head of humanitarian aid, Louis Michel, Somalis fleeing the fighting have endured 'systematic looting, extortion and rape by uniformed troops' - only the Ethiopian and government forces have uniforms. And last week uniformed troops commandeered 12 trucks and helped themselves to tonnes of sugar and computers from the recently opened Coca-Cola factory in Mogadishu. Only after aggressive intervention from the Americans and EU did the government agree to allow enough food for 32,000, less than a tenth of the number in need, through its roadblocks heading west on Friday. 'There is a great deal of extortion and bribery of armed men on the way to delivery,' said a senior aid worker. 'If we can't get real deliveries through... we'll have a humanitarian catastrophe on our hands. We're hoping that the government doesn't see this as a chance to get rid of their clan enemies permanently.' America provided Ethiopia with secret satellite images and air support, including AC130 gunships, during the original invasion over the new year, hoping to net al-Qaeda agents who had been behind attacks on a Kenyan hotel and an Israeli airliner in 2002. The suspects have not been caught, though other al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Court leaders - among them Hassan Dahir Aweys and Mukhtar Robow - are now on the run and believed to be orchestrating the 'insurgency' against the government.

I'm not implying anything. Cheating (i.e. having multiple sexual partners) is as old as dirt and religion and culture can only go so far to change it.

Originally posted by Ana_Juwa2: i wanted to ask, do you think that whats happening in Somalia now is a punishment to somali's for the way the have been are are still living today i.e. the tribilism which sporns of the hatred and killings? Which, in your opinion, is a bigger sin: the belief in tribalism or the outright rejection of God himself? In other words, if those who believe in God but also practice tribalism (e.g. Somalis) receive this special treatment from God, what do you think should happen to those who reject, ridicule and deny his existence?

Those fighting the Ethiopians have now put down their weapons, stole a shipment of military uniforms (doesn't say which military, the TFG , or the Ethiopians) and are now rampaging through the city. They, the "fighters/looters/profiteers/thugs" are only doing what comes naturally to them. Thievery, we're constantly told, runs in there veins, you see.

Geel_jire with whip, ready at hand, strikes again. LOL.

Originally posted by ThePoint: The case is really not all that complicated. For 30+ years - all assets of the government and people of Somalia were concentrated in Mogadishu. With the disintegration of the government and the enormous exodus of hundreds of thousands, there was a mass rush to expropriate those assets - land, property, airport/seaport etc. Much that valuable was stripped down and sold overseas. "All"? Are you sure? You mentioned seaport and airport, what other "choice" properties were "expropriated"? And by whom? Do not forget that those who controlled many ill-gotten assets in Muqdisho are lovingly called ministers and members of parliament in the puppet regime. Also, do these properties include those "nationalized" by Afweyne only to be given away as gifts through despotic nepotism. I'm sure you've heard of such rumors. The competition for choice loot led to continous wars in Mogadishu as there was more than one armed group to fight over the spoils. As SB said, that's an extraordinary claim with a pittance of evidence. Make up your mind, if "much that was valuable was stripped down and sold overseas", why on earth would it lead to "continous wars". Ah, it's because it didn't solely lead to the conflicts. The many wars that raged in Somalia had many motives. Not the least of which was a constant struggle for power between rivaling clans and subclans. Why were there more warlords in Mogadishu than any other city in Somalia? Why - because there was so much to fight over. Why are there more people in Mogadishu than any other city in Somalia? You gave too simple an answer specially when you claimed much of the "loot" had already been stripped down and sold overseas. Why did Mogadishu experience some of the worst fighting in Somalia pre-TFG or ICU? Why - there were serious assets at stake. Why did Mogadishu have the longest bouts of instability and conflict of any city of Somalia? Why - you get the picture. No, I don't get the picture for you didn't paint any. You insist on making simple cause and effect links when you've made no effort in proving them with any specific evidence. Fully 3 sentences dedicated to why the conflict there lasted so long and raged strongest than in most other areas of the country. Those same people, using their military strength, were able to turn the loot into wealth and influence are among those fighting on the anti-TFG side in Mogadishu today . Their wealth and influence is threatened by this potential government. Why all you have to look at is the past history of the city. Simple as that. Did they have the military strength before or after they acquired the wealth? And if they've amassed such enormous ill-gotten wealth and military strength through looting and profiteering, why would they simply acquiesce to a group of rag-tag "Islamists" in mid 2006 and then turn 180 degrees to fight tooth and nail the largest army in Africa for the very same loot. That simple fact alone strips you, and your idol Gettleman, of any grounds for claiming the love of anarchy and profiteering is fueling this conflict. Surely, a low cost, high profit enterprise, like an Isbaaro, that could net $40,000 per day is worth fighting everyone for. Unless, of course, like our resident bigot on the forum, you are convinced that an entire clan is made up of looters and profiteers and therefore, that is their motivation to fight the Ethiopians and not their own, i.e. the Courts. I'm not saying that this is what 'fuels' the conflict to use your words. What I'm saying is that it is an important factor in the conflict. Simple as that. Surely if it is an "important" factor, then it goes without saying that it is fueling this conflict. You can't have it both ways. This conflict, unlike all the others that came before it, and as others have told you, has zilch to do with profiteering. If you still insist that it does, you will have to make a better case that does not involve the entirety of Mogadishu clans are thieves, looters and profiteers. Capisce?

Difficult as it is to imagine, we've not seen the end of the carnage. Allow sahal.

Listen to Amy Goodman dedicate nearly the entire hour on Democracy Now to Somalia

^^^^ Just how much more bandwidth will be wasted on your little wet dream?

Ethiopia Finds Itself Ensnared in Somalia Some Observers See Similarities To U.S. in Iraq By Stephanie McCrummen Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, April 27, 2007; A16 ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- Four months after Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared his own "war on terror" against an Islamic movement in Somalia, Ethiopia remains entangled in a situation that analysts and critics are comparing to the U.S. experience in Iraq. Though Meles proclaimed his military mission accomplished in January, thousands of Ethiopian troops remain in the Somali capital, where they have used attack helicopters, tanks and other heavy weapons in a bloody campaign against insurgents that in recent weeks has killed more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians, and forced half of the city's population to flee. On Thursday, the Ethiopian-backed Somali prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, declared that three weeks of heavy fighting was over, a statement tempered by the mortar blasts that continued to boom in the distance, witnesses said. Meanwhile, a political crisis seems to be worsening, as the Somali transitional government, steadfastly supported by the United States, faces a swell of criticism for ignoring concerns of the city's dominant ****** clan, whose militias form the core of the insurgency and who are motivated not by the ideology of jihad, but power. "It's just exactly like the Americans in Iraq," said Beyene Petros, a member of the Ethiopian Parliament and an early critic of the invasion. "I don't see how this was a victory. It really was a futile exercise." The United States, which had accused Somalia's Islamic Courts movement of being hijacked by extremist ideologues, followed Ethiopia's invasion with airstrikes aimed at three suspects in the 1998 American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, along with certain Islamic Courts leaders accused of having terrorist ties. Four months later, however, none of those targets has been killed or captured, and the U.S. airstrikes are confirmed to have killed only civilians, livestock and a smattering of Islamic fighters on the run who were never accused of any crime. More than 200 FBI and CIA agents have set up camp in the Sheraton Hotel here in Ethiopia's capital and have been interrogating dozens of detainees -- including a U.S. citizen -- picked up in Somalia and held without charge and without attorneys in a secret prison somewhere in this city, according to Ethiopian and U.S. officials who say the interrogations are lawful. U.S. and Ethiopian officials say they have netted valuable information from some of the 41 detainees, who are being brought before a court whose proceedings are closed to the public. Others have been quietly released, however, and human rights groups are criticizing the joint operation as a kind of "decentralized Guantanamo" in the Horn of Africa . Ethiopian officials declined to be interviewed on the subject of Somalia, and a general blackout of information about the war prevails in the capital. Opposition members of Parliament complain that they have not been informed how many Ethiopian soldiers have been killed, how much the war is costing per day or how the government is paying for it. There is also a sense here that while the invasion served Meles's own domestic interests, Ethiopia was also doing a job on behalf of the United States and is being left with a financial and military mess. Supporters of Meles are mostly playing down the trouble, even as they are scrambling behind the scenes to find a solution. Knife Abraham, a close adviser to the prime minister, described the situation in Mogadishu -- where the bodies of Ethiopian soldiers have been dragged through the streets -- as "a hiccup." "The victory was swift and decisive," Abraham said. "Now Ethiopia wants to stabilize the situation and get out." But it remains unclear how Ethiopia will manage to do that while preserving Somalia's fragile transitional government and preventing more violence. "The military victory was not complemented by a political victory," said Medhane Tadesse, an occasional adviser to the Ethiopian government who initially supported the invasion. "Long-term stability in Somalia requires a long-term social strategy, but Ethiopia and the U.S. only had a military strategy." Privately, diplomats in the region say the main problem for Meles comes down to one man: the president of the Somali transitional government, Abdullahi Yusuf, who has always had close ties to Ethiopia. Although Yusuf promised an inclusive government, he has failed to satisfy key leaders of the ****** clan, the historic rivals of Yusuf's ***** clan and the main base of support for the ousted Islamic Courts movement. While Yusuf and Meles have continued to wage what they call a war against "terrorists," experts and even officials close to Yusuf say the insurgency has been heavily motivated by ****** clan business interests rather than ideology. Yusuf's chief of staff, Adam Hassan, accused ****** leaders of trying to "hoodwink" Somalis and foreign diplomats into believing that the ****** have been treated unfairly, so they can retain property and land they took over after the 1991 fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, who was from Yusuf's ***** clan. ****** leaders said Yusuf wants to assume control of a city they have in many ways administered, and profited from, for years. They said their skepticism of the government has been strengthened by the president, "who labels as 'terrorist' every person or clan who criticizes his policy and clan-style leadership," according to a document outlining their concerns to Ethiopian officials. One diplomat closely involved in the reconciliation process said Yusuf has refused to meet with ****** elders. In an attempt to breach that gap, Ethiopia has lately been negotiating directly with ****** leaders, while the ****** seem to be trying to untangle themselves from certain Islamic Courts figures in an attempt to polish their image. This month, the clan asked two of the more extreme Islamic leaders to leave Mogadishu, saying they were a liability. While the extremist element was always a factor in the Islamic movement, the notion of waging a "war on terror" in Somalia was always an oversimplification of a more complex situation, said Tadesse, the adviser to the Ethiopian government . The Islamic movement was diverse, made up of extremist military commanders vowing holy war against Ethiopia and moderate leaders, including one, Ibrahim Addow, who taught at American University and holds a U.S. passport. It was also always fundamentally a ****** movement, and Somalis tend to be loyal to clan above all. Ethiopia and the United States made a mistake, Tadesse and other critics say, by throwing their support entirely behind the transitional government in the name of fighting a terrorist threat that involved just a few individuals, and at the expense of alienating the ******. This month, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer flew to Somalia in a show of U.S. support for Yusuf's government, a move that further infuriated ****** leaders. Frazer has expressed "concern" for civilians but has offered no public criticism of the transitional government or of Ethiopia for using attack helicopters and other heavy weapons against civilian neighborhoods that have been reduced to ruins. In his news conference Thursday, the Somali prime minister, Gedi, invited more than 300,000 residents who have fled the city in recent weeks to return to the broken seaside capital, where certain neighborhoods have lately acquired new nicknames. In an allusion to sectarian violence engulfing Baghdad, residents now call the north part of the city Shiite and the south Sunni. Gedi said that most of the fighting had ended and that Ethiopian and Somali government troops were merely clearing out the remaining "pockets" of resistance. But Mohamud Uluso, a prominent leader of a ****** sub-clan called the ***, said that despite Gedi's declaration, fighting will most likely continue. "What is worrying for Somalis and the international community now is the possibility of what happened in Iraq," he said. "The fighting was under the control of the ****** leadership committee, but once that control disintegrates, then there will be underground leadership. You don't know who or where they are." Special correspondent Mohamed Ibrahim in Mogadishu contributed to this report.

Ethiopia Finds Itself Ensnared in Somalia Some Observers See Similarities To U.S. in Iraq By Stephanie McCrummen Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, April 27, 2007; A16 ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- Four months after Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared his own "war on terror" against an Islamic movement in Somalia, Ethiopia remains entangled in a situation that analysts and critics are comparing to the U.S. experience in Iraq. Though Meles proclaimed his military mission accomplished in January, thousands of Ethiopian troops remain in the Somali capital, where they have used attack helicopters, tanks and other heavy weapons in a bloody campaign against insurgents that in recent weeks has killed more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians, and forced half of the city's population to flee. On Thursday, the Ethiopian-backed Somali prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, declared that three weeks of heavy fighting was over, a statement tempered by the mortar blasts that continued to boom in the distance, witnesses said. Meanwhile, a political crisis seems to be worsening, as the Somali transitional government, steadfastly supported by the United States, faces a swell of criticism for ignoring concerns of the city's dominant ****** clan, whose militias form the core of the insurgency and who are motivated not by the ideology of jihad, but power. "It's just exactly like the Americans in Iraq," said Beyene Petros, a member of the Ethiopian Parliament and an early critic of the invasion. "I don't see how this was a victory. It really was a futile exercise." The United States, which had accused Somalia's Islamic Courts movement of being hijacked by extremist ideologues, followed Ethiopia's invasion with airstrikes aimed at three suspects in the 1998 American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, along with certain Islamic Courts leaders accused of having terrorist ties. Four months later, however, none of those targets has been killed or captured, and the U.S. airstrikes are confirmed to have killed only civilians, livestock and a smattering of Islamic fighters on the run who were never accused of any crime. More than 200 FBI and CIA agents have set up camp in the Sheraton Hotel here in Ethiopia's capital and have been interrogating dozens of detainees -- including a U.S. citizen -- picked up in Somalia and held without charge and without attorneys in a secret prison somewhere in this city, according to Ethiopian and U.S. officials who say the interrogations are lawful. U.S. and Ethiopian officials say they have netted valuable information from some of the 41 detainees, who are being brought before a court whose proceedings are closed to the public. Others have been quietly released, however, and human rights groups are criticizing the joint operation as a kind of "decentralized Guantanamo" in the Horn of Africa . Ethiopian officials declined to be interviewed on the subject of Somalia, and a general blackout of information about the war prevails in the capital. Opposition members of Parliament complain that they have not been informed how many Ethiopian soldiers have been killed, how much the war is costing per day or how the government is paying for it. There is also a sense here that while the invasion served Meles's own domestic interests, Ethiopia was also doing a job on behalf of the United States and is being left with a financial and military mess. Supporters of Meles are mostly playing down the trouble, even as they are scrambling behind the scenes to find a solution. Knife Abraham, a close adviser to the prime minister, described the situation in Mogadishu -- where the bodies of Ethiopian soldiers have been dragged through the streets -- as "a hiccup." "The victory was swift and decisive," Abraham said. "Now Ethiopia wants to stabilize the situation and get out." But it remains unclear how Ethiopia will manage to do that while preserving Somalia's fragile transitional government and preventing more violence. "The military victory was not complemented by a political victory," said Medhane Tadesse, an occasional adviser to the Ethiopian government who initially supported the invasion. "Long-term stability in Somalia requires a long-term social strategy, but Ethiopia and the U.S. only had a military strategy." Privately, diplomats in the region say the main problem for Meles comes down to one man: the president of the Somali transitional government, Abdullahi Yusuf, who has always had close ties to Ethiopia. Although Yusuf promised an inclusive government, he has failed to satisfy key leaders of the ****** clan, the historic rivals of Yusuf's ***** clan and the main base of support for the ousted Islamic Courts movement. While Yusuf and Meles have continued to wage what they call a war against "terrorists," experts and even officials close to Yusuf say the insurgency has been heavily motivated by ****** clan business interests rather than ideology. Yusuf's chief of staff, Adam Hassan, accused ****** leaders of trying to "hoodwink" Somalis and foreign diplomats into believing that the ****** have been treated unfairly, so they can retain property and land they took over after the 1991 fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, who was from Yusuf's ***** clan. ****** leaders said Yusuf wants to assume control of a city they have in many ways administered, and profited from, for years. They said their skepticism of the government has been strengthened by the president, "who labels as 'terrorist' every person or clan who criticizes his policy and clan-style leadership," according to a document outlining their concerns to Ethiopian officials. One diplomat closely involved in the reconciliation process said Yusuf has refused to meet with ****** elders. In an attempt to breach that gap, Ethiopia has lately been negotiating directly with ****** leaders, while the ****** seem to be trying to untangle themselves from certain Islamic Courts figures in an attempt to polish their image. This month, the clan asked two of the more extreme Islamic leaders to leave Mogadishu, saying they were a liability. While the extremist element was always a factor in the Islamic movement, the notion of waging a "war on terror" in Somalia was always an oversimplification of a more complex situation, said Tadesse, the adviser to the Ethiopian government . The Islamic movement was diverse, made up of extremist military commanders vowing holy war against Ethiopia and moderate leaders, including one, Ibrahim Addow, who taught at American University and holds a U.S. passport. It was also always fundamentally a ****** movement, and Somalis tend to be loyal to clan above all. Ethiopia and the United States made a mistake, Tadesse and other critics say, by throwing their support entirely behind the transitional government in the name of fighting a terrorist threat that involved just a few individuals, and at the expense of alienating the ******. This month, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer flew to Somalia in a show of U.S. support for Yusuf's government, a move that further infuriated ****** leaders. Frazer has expressed "concern" for civilians but has offered no public criticism of the transitional government or of Ethiopia for using attack helicopters and other heavy weapons against civilian neighborhoods that have been reduced to ruins. In his news conference Thursday, the Somali prime minister, Gedi, invited more than 300,000 residents who have fled the city in recent weeks to return to the broken seaside capital, where certain neighborhoods have lately acquired new nicknames. In an allusion to sectarian violence engulfing Baghdad, residents now call the north part of the city Shiite and the south Sunni. Gedi said that most of the fighting had ended and that Ethiopian and Somali government troops were merely clearing out the remaining "pockets" of resistance. But Mohamud Uluso, a prominent leader of a ****** sub-clan called the ***, said that despite Gedi's declaration, fighting will most likely continue. "What is worrying for Somalis and the international community now is the possibility of what happened in Iraq," he said. "The fighting was under the control of the ****** leadership committee, but once that control disintegrates, then there will be underground leadership. You don't know who or where they are." Special correspondent Mohamed Ibrahim in Mogadishu contributed to this report.

Ethiopia Finds Itself Ensnared in Somalia Some Observers See Similarities To U.S. in Iraq By Stephanie McCrummen Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, April 27, 2007; A16 ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- Four months after Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared his own "war on terror" against an Islamic movement in Somalia, Ethiopia remains entangled in a situation that analysts and critics are comparing to the U.S. experience in Iraq. Though Meles proclaimed his military mission accomplished in January, thousands of Ethiopian troops remain in the Somali capital, where they have used attack helicopters, tanks and other heavy weapons in a bloody campaign against insurgents that in recent weeks has killed more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians, and forced half of the city's population to flee. On Thursday, the Ethiopian-backed Somali prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, declared that three weeks of heavy fighting was over, a statement tempered by the mortar blasts that continued to boom in the distance, witnesses said. Meanwhile, a political crisis seems to be worsening, as the Somali transitional government, steadfastly supported by the United States, faces a swell of criticism for ignoring concerns of the city's dominant ****** clan, whose militias form the core of the insurgency and who are motivated not by the ideology of jihad, but power. "It's just exactly like the Americans in Iraq," said Beyene Petros, a member of the Ethiopian Parliament and an early critic of the invasion. "I don't see how this was a victory. It really was a futile exercise." The United States, which had accused Somalia's Islamic Courts movement of being hijacked by extremist ideologues, followed Ethiopia's invasion with airstrikes aimed at three suspects in the 1998 American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, along with certain Islamic Courts leaders accused of having terrorist ties. Four months later, however, none of those targets has been killed or captured, and the U.S. airstrikes are confirmed to have killed only civilians, livestock and a smattering of Islamic fighters on the run who were never accused of any crime. More than 200 FBI and CIA agents have set up camp in the Sheraton Hotel here in Ethiopia's capital and have been interrogating dozens of detainees -- including a U.S. citizen -- picked up in Somalia and held without charge and without attorneys in a secret prison somewhere in this city, according to Ethiopian and U.S. officials who say the interrogations are lawful. U.S. and Ethiopian officials say they have netted valuable information from some of the 41 detainees, who are being brought before a court whose proceedings are closed to the public. Others have been quietly released, however, and human rights groups are criticizing the joint operation as a kind of "decentralized Guantanamo" in the Horn of Africa . Ethiopian officials declined to be interviewed on the subject of Somalia, and a general blackout of information about the war prevails in the capital. Opposition members of Parliament complain that they have not been informed how many Ethiopian soldiers have been killed, how much the war is costing per day or how the government is paying for it. There is also a sense here that while the invasion served Meles's own domestic interests, Ethiopia was also doing a job on behalf of the United States and is being left with a financial and military mess. Supporters of Meles are mostly playing down the trouble, even as they are scrambling behind the scenes to find a solution. Knife Abraham, a close adviser to the prime minister, described the situation in Mogadishu -- where the bodies of Ethiopian soldiers have been dragged through the streets -- as "a hiccup." "The victory was swift and decisive," Abraham said. "Now Ethiopia wants to stabilize the situation and get out." But it remains unclear how Ethiopia will manage to do that while preserving Somalia's fragile transitional government and preventing more violence. "The military victory was not complemented by a political victory," said Medhane Tadesse, an occasional adviser to the Ethiopian government who initially supported the invasion. "Long-term stability in Somalia requires a long-term social strategy, but Ethiopia and the U.S. only had a military strategy." Privately, diplomats in the region say the main problem for Meles comes down to one man: the president of the Somali transitional government, Abdullahi Yusuf, who has always had close ties to Ethiopia. Although Yusuf promised an inclusive government, he has failed to satisfy key leaders of the ****** clan, the historic rivals of Yusuf's ***** clan and the main base of support for the ousted Islamic Courts movement. While Yusuf and Meles have continued to wage what they call a war against "terrorists," experts and even officials close to Yusuf say the insurgency has been heavily motivated by ****** clan business interests rather than ideology. Yusuf's chief of staff, Adam Hassan, accused ****** leaders of trying to "hoodwink" Somalis and foreign diplomats into believing that the ****** have been treated unfairly, so they can retain property and land they took over after the 1991 fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, who was from Yusuf's ***** clan. ****** leaders said Yusuf wants to assume control of a city they have in many ways administered, and profited from, for years. They said their skepticism of the government has been strengthened by the president, "who labels as 'terrorist' every person or clan who criticizes his policy and clan-style leadership," according to a document outlining their concerns to Ethiopian officials. One diplomat closely involved in the reconciliation process said Yusuf has refused to meet with ****** elders. In an attempt to breach that gap, Ethiopia has lately been negotiating directly with ****** leaders, while the ****** seem to be trying to untangle themselves from certain Islamic Courts figures in an attempt to polish their image. This month, the clan asked two of the more extreme Islamic leaders to leave Mogadishu, saying they were a liability. While the extremist element was always a factor in the Islamic movement, the notion of waging a "war on terror" in Somalia was always an oversimplification of a more complex situation, said Tadesse, the adviser to the Ethiopian government . The Islamic movement was diverse, made up of extremist military commanders vowing holy war against Ethiopia and moderate leaders, including one, Ibrahim Addow, who taught at American University and holds a U.S. passport. It was also always fundamentally a ****** movement, and Somalis tend to be loyal to clan above all. Ethiopia and the United States made a mistake, Tadesse and other critics say, by throwing their support entirely behind the transitional government in the name of fighting a terrorist threat that involved just a few individuals, and at the expense of alienating the ******. This month, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer flew to Somalia in a show of U.S. support for Yusuf's government, a move that further infuriated ****** leaders. Frazer has expressed "concern" for civilians but has offered no public criticism of the transitional government or of Ethiopia for using attack helicopters and other heavy weapons against civilian neighborhoods that have been reduced to ruins. In his news conference Thursday, the Somali prime minister, Gedi, invited more than 300,000 residents who have fled the city in recent weeks to return to the broken seaside capital, where certain neighborhoods have lately acquired new nicknames. In an allusion to sectarian violence engulfing Baghdad, residents now call the north part of the city Shiite and the south Sunni. Gedi said that most of the fighting had ended and that Ethiopian and Somali government troops were merely clearing out the remaining "pockets" of resistance. But Mohamud Uluso, a prominent leader of a ****** sub-clan called the ***, said that despite Gedi's declaration, fighting will most likely continue. "What is worrying for Somalis and the international community now is the possibility of what happened in Iraq," he said. "The fighting was under the control of the ****** leadership committee, but once that control disintegrates, then there will be underground leadership. You don't know who or where they are." Special correspondent Mohamed Ibrahim in Mogadishu contributed to this report.

^^^^ Every aid organization and news outlet worldwide, not to mention eyewitness reports said it was indiscriminate so pardon me if I don't take your word for it. Now that that is out of the way, I don't think they'll be condemning the bombings anytime soon. Well, guess then who shamelessly parades the label of an elder but is in fact a coward? And please, don't think this is limited to the "wise men" of any clan. This is across the board atheer.

^^^ Xoogsade, atheer, you need to learn, as I did, to get past the accusations of clannism. First, you could never prove them. Second, they dull the discussion and distract from the real issues at hand.

These clan elders represent the people of Puntland, so you could see why they'd comment on one war and not the other. No I can't. The Dhahar incident does not compare in any way, shape or form to the catastrophic destruction that occurred in Xamar recently. Still, it hurts not to hear all Somalis condemn the indiscriminate bombing, publicly. No one asked anyone to come and fight alongside the resistance. The show of support is what lacked from the "elders". That's what Xoogsade is trying to tell you. He's got this funny way of saying it though. I personally don't give a shit about any elders. Their medieval mentalities is what's keeping all of us in this shit. I was quite content to read about Puntlanders in the diaspora come out and condemn this obscenity. One of those men and women is worth a tonne of rubbish elders, of any clan.

Originally posted by Violet: Have the clan elders from Xamar commented on the situations in Dhahar? If so, I'd agree, otherwise... I'm not sure they had a chance to catch the news. You see, they had this little problem with Ethiopian tanks....

^^^ Don't be too quick to judge. The percentages in other cultures may vary but I suspect they would not be drastically different. The modes and motivations for these things are universal. Americans would find it a little easier to admit something like this than, say, Somalis would.

Careful there, SB. You're beginning to sound like a secessionist. It's not inaccurate or unfair to say most Somalis feel much sympathy and share, if only in their hearts, the obscenity descended upon their fellow Somalis in Xamar. Having said that, it takes courage to speak up against evil and even more to fight it. Let's just say most people (universally) choose the share-the-pain-in-silence route. Which, incidentally, should make you wonder if that silence is what aids, even causes, the evil in the first place.

Xoogsadow, it's simple but not that simple atheer. Who knows what anyone is. More importantly, who cares? No one chooses their clan, thier race, their birthplace and mostly not even their religion. Don't get distracted too much with who's what or why. With what they say, people usually give you enough rope to hang them with.

^^^^ Evasion? After my invitation to make a discussion out of this? Ma caleyna. I need not rebut Gettleman's article nor defend Floyd's rebuttal. I need you in the ring, atheer. You can't get a hint, can you? While writing your "best" effort above, I guess it dawned on you, and it shows , that it is easier to rebut a case than to make one. Are you sure you want to keep the above as your case? Is that your final answer? Don't worry, I got it saved anyway. Salut et bon fin de semaine.

And pray for the dead. There are almost 400,000 people who need a break, a roof, a meal, medicine and a good night sleep. Pray for those. Pray also that long may live the resistance and may it continue the good fight.

Originally posted by Libaax-Sankataabte: As for the US bombing Mogadishu, my gut tells me this is a propaganda. This ain't no propaganda awoowe. Old man Castro is clairvoyant.

^^^^ I guess they arrived even sooner than I thought.