January 09, 2007 1:59 PM Alexis Debat Reports: U.S. special forces are working with Ethiopian troops on the ground in operations inside Somalia today, senior U.S. and French military sources tell ABC News. The sources declined to describe details of today's mission but said U.S. special forces, including a significant CIA presence, have been involved in numerous such missions, operating from a large American base camp known as "Camp Le Monier," established in the French protectorate of Djibouti following 9/11. There are approximately 3,000 American special forces and U.S. military soldiers based at "Camp Le Monier," which has become a major reconnaissance and staging base in the fight against al Qaeda in the region. Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage. It is from this base the CIA flies predators over Yemen and Somalia and from which recent air attacks over Somalia were launched. ABC News

Wednesday , January 10, 2007 MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- A Somali government official says his country wants US troops to flush out remaining extremists after US airstrikes this week killed a suspect in the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa. Somalia's Deputy Prime Minister says US special ground forces are needed as government forces backed by Ethiopia are unable to capture the last remaining hideouts of suspected extremists. And the Somali president's chief of staff says US airstrikes are expected to continue following attacks Monday that killed the suspected al-Qaida militant who planned the embassy bombings. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman isn't saying whether US military operations will continue, but other defense officials say other attacks either have been planned or are under consideration. Witnesses say US attack helicopters also strafed suspected al-Qaida fighters in southern Somalia Tuesday. AP

Even the incompetent Arab League is stunned at the myopic vision of this puppet regime.

CAIRO, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- The Arab League has criticized Somali government officials for defending U.S. air strikes against their country, saying this violates their own sovereignty. Arab League Deputy Secretary-General Ahmad Ben Heli said in a statement Wednesday it was "very unfortunate and surprising for some Somali officials to react in this manner." He added it was hoped the leaders would be keen on defending their sovereignty and interests instead of inviting foreign intervention in Somalia, a member in the 22-state Arab organization. The statement came the day the London-based ash-Sharq al-Awsat daily quoted interim Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf as defending the U.S. air strikes in southern Somalia, the latest of which included four raids Wednesday against suspected Islamic Courts Union targets, which the United States says belong to al-Qaida. Yusuf told the Saudi-owned paper the Americans were "hunting down al-Qaida terrorists ... and Monday's raids are part of that" campaign. He also claimed those who carried out the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 were based in southern Somalia, insisting "this was the appropriate time to have carried out those (U.S.) raids." Ben Heli urged the U.S. administration to stop its air strikes, saying they were killing many innocent civilians in the process. The U.S. forces launched air strikes Monday and Wednesday after provisional government forces and allied Ethiopian troops managed to capture cities and towns that had been controlled by the Islamic Courts Union, which Ethiopia and the United States -- and now the Somali government -- say are affiliated with the al-Qaida network. UPI

Witnesses reported renewed air strikes aimed at Islamic militant targets in Somalia today, and a Somali official claimed that a senior al-Qaida figure had been killed. Also today, a senior Somali politician said US troops were also needed on the ground to fight a Muslim extremist threat. At least four AC-130 gunship strikes took place today around Ras Kamboni, the rugged area on the Somali coast a few miles from the Kenyan border that the US also attacked Monday, a local resident who declined to give his name told two-way radio operator Doorane Adan Harere in Nairobi, Kenya. Presidential chief of staff Abdirizak Hassan said at least three US airstrikes have been launched since Monday and that more were likely. US defense department officials, speaking privately yesterday in Washington because the department was not releasing the information, suggested the military was either planning or considering additional strikes in Somalia. Hassan said Al Qaida suspect Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who allegedly planned the 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was killed in a US airstrike early Monday, according to an American intelligence report passed on to Somali authorities. If confirmed, it would mean the end of an eight-year hunt for a top target of Washington’s war on terror. Fazul, one of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists, was allegedly harboured by a Somali Islamic movement that had challenged this country’s Ethiopian-backed government for power. In Washington, US government officials said they had no reason to believe that Fazul has been killed. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the information’s sensitivity. In Ethiopia, Prime Minister Meles said that most of the victims in the first US air strike were Somalis, but said identities would not be confirmed until DNA testing is completed. Fazul, 32, joined al-Qaida in Afghanistan and trained there with Osama bin Laden, chief of the terror network, according to the transcript of an FBI interrogation of a known associate. He had a five-million-dollar bounty on his head for allegedly planning the 1998 attacks on the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which killed 225 people. He is also suspected of planning the car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and the near simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002. Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed in the blast at the hotel, 12 miles north of Mombasa. The missiles missed the airliner. The US campaign is the first US offensive in this African country since 18 American soldiers were killed there in 1993 while on a peacekeeping mission. In addition to trying to capture al Qaida members thought to be fleeing since the Islamic militia began losing ground last month, American officials want to ensure the militants will no longer threaten Somalia’s UN-backed transitional government. Somalia’s Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Aided said today that US special forces were needed on the ground as government forces backed by Ethiopia are unable to capture the last remaining hideouts of suspected extremists. “They have the know-how and the right equipment to capture these people,” Aided, a former US Marine said. A senior Somali government official said a small US team was already on the ground, providing military advice to Ethiopian and government forces. In Washington, two senior Pentagon officials said today they had heard of no plans to put any sizeable contingent of Americans on the ground in Somalia. Small teams of liaison officers – such as special forces advisers or trainers - are another matter, they said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak on the subject. A third official noted that it would be virtually unheard of for the US to be involved in an operation of this size if it didn’t already have “eyes on the ground.” He declined to comment on any plans for future teams and asked not to be identified because the Defence Department is reluctant to talk about special forces. US troops based in neighbouring Djibouti have been training Ethiopian soldiers for years, mostly in small unit tactics and border security. Ethiopia has the largest military in the region and is America’s closest ally in the Horn of Africa, long considered a hot spot in the war on terror. More than two dozen men who appear to be paramilitary in civilian clothes were seen in neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia in the weeks running up to Ethiopia’s intervention on December 24. Pentagon, regional US military officials and the US Embassy in Kenya all declined to comment on possible special forces operations in Somalia. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said US forces were not with his troops, but said America was supplying him with battlefield intelligence. In the capital, Mogadishu, some said the US airstrike would increase anti-American sentiment in the largely Muslim country, where people are already upset by the presence of troops from neighbouring Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population. The US strikes also have been criticised internationally, with the African Union, the EU and the UN secretary-general among those expressing concern. But British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a key US ally, insisted in remarks to lawmakers in London Wednesday that it was right to stand up to extremists who were using violence to “get their way” in Somalia. Leaders of Somalia’s Islamic movement have vowed from their hideouts to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war, and al Qaida’s deputy chief has called on militants to carry out suicide attacks on Ethiopian troops. Irish Examiner

10 Jan 10, 2007 By Andrew Cawthorne ANALYSIS NAIROBI, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Many international diplomats are touting an African peacekeeping force as the answer to Somalia's myriad problems and a way to get Ethiopian troops out. But even getting such a mission into Somalia looks fraught with problems, let alone actually taming the chaos in a nation that defied U.N. and U.S. peacekeepers more than a decade ago. "I don't think sub-Saharan Africa is in a position to mount a successful operation in Somalia," UK-based Africa specialist Tom Cargill said. "Just look back to 1993. That was a coalition of some of the world's most advanced forces, but it failed." In public, the African Union and east African body IGAD are upbeat. They say they are willing in principle to send more than 8,000 peacekeepers into Somalia, providing funding is forthcoming and member nations cough up troops and equipment. Such a mission would be intended to help the interim government of President Abdullahi Yusuf stabilise and pacify the nation since the ouster of Islamists who ruled most of the south for six months before a two-week war over the New Year. Ethiopia wants to pull out its troops, who provided the military muscle against the Islamists, within weeks. But there are fears the government, which lacks a national power-base or truly popular support, could implode if that happens without peacekeepers replacing them. Only Uganda, so far, has said it will send soldiers into Somalia, but its leaders are blowing hot-and-cold, given the obvious risks. Nigeria and South Africa are also possibilities. "But when African military bosses impress upon politicians the realities and true risks, they will realise it is just not realistic," said U.S. Somalia analyst Ken Menkhaus. "They cannot move into a non-permissive environment, they will be slaughtered ... My fear is that they won't deploy in time, Ethiopia will withdraw, and this risks a quagmire, with Somalia reverting to the pre-war situation of anarchy." AFRICAN SOLUTIONS? Nobody in Africa has forgotten the last international push to pacify Somalia when U.N. and U.S. would-be peacekeepers tried to sort out the anarchy left by the 1991 ouster of a dictator. The U.S. exit came months after 18 of its soldiers were killed and dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in an incident later portrayed in the "Black Hawk Down" film. While many around the continent deeply feel the need to provide African solutions to African problems, the precedent in another hot-spot -- Sudan's Darfur region -- is not encouraging. There, an over-stretched, under-funded and under-equipped African Union force has failed to stop conflict. "They have only been able to report abuses, not stop them," Cargill said. So why would Somalia be different, many are asking. "It's not that African peacekeepers are inherently less capable than others. In fact, they're often tougher and more adaptable," an African diplomat in Nairobi said. "But they don't get the money, the backup, all that sophisticated equipment that a U.N. peacekeeper can rely on." Another problem awaiting African peacekeepers if they do go into Somalia is the threat of jihad from Muslim radicals. Al Qaeda leaders including Osama bin Laden have said the existing Ethiopian occupiers, and any other foreign peacekeepers who may move into Somalia, are legitimate targets for Muslims worldwide to counter a Western-led "crusade" against Islam. Some diplomats suggest the Arab League could be brought into a peacekeeping mission to help dilute that threat. While the United States is dead set on getting African peacekeepers in quickly and has already pledged funds, the European Union has been more equivocal. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana suggested U.N. peacekeepers should follow a first batch of AU troops, while the bloc's aid commissioner Louis Michel said support was linked to proof the Somali government was reaching out to all players. Analyst Menkhaus said all precedents showed a peacekeeping force could not be assembled in a hurry, and would only work if, as Michel said, the mission was seen as supporting a national reconciliation process rather than propping the government. "And the opposition is not just the Islamists, but the clans, businesses, civic groups and others who are badly under-represented in the government," he said. Whatever happens, most agree Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi does not want to hang around long in Somalia, where his forces have been attacked in recent days and are a focus to galvanise both Somali religious and nationalistic sentiment. Having achieved his main objective of smashing an Islamist movement threatening Ethiopia's interests in the region, the messy job of pacification is less of a priority, analysts say. "Ethiopia will blame the international community for failing to send peacekeepers, and go back to the border, then there will be chaos again," Cargill said. "As long as it is contained anarchy, Somalia is not such a problem for Ethiopia." Reuters (Via Garowe Online)

10 Jan 10, 2007, 09:58 SANAA, 10 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - Ninety of the 140 missing Somali migrants to Yemen have been buried in mass graves in the Bir Ali area of Shabwa after their bodies were found floating off the coast, members of the Somali community in the capital, Sana’a, said on Wednesday. The head of the Somali community, Mohammed Ali Hersi, called for greater efforts to find the remaining migrants still missing at sea. “It is really a terrible mishap and we feel very sorry for those who died and those who are still missing,” he said. Hersi added that the survivors were in a miserable condition, and that not all of them had been sent to the refugee reception centre in Mayfa'a, Shabwa. “There are still some survivors in Bir Ali, left without shelter and anyone to care for them. Among them are four children, who lost their parents during the December incident,” he said. On 27 December, four boats carrying 515 Somalis and Ethiopians capsized off the Yemeni coast after crossing the Gulf of Aden, claiming 17 people, and 140 went missing. Two of the smugglers' boats had reportedly offloaded their passengers and were then fired on by Yemeni security forces, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a statement issued on 28 December, adding that the smugglers returned fire. Survivors said they came from the troubled areas of Bur-Hakaba, Baidoa and Beletweyne in central Somalia. Many claimed that they had fled the conflict between the Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government and the Union of Islamic Courts. There are 84,000 Somali refugees registered in Yemen. Of these 23,000 arrived in the country in 2006; more than 360 died entering the country and 300 were missing at sea. Garowe Online

^ And you expect him to comprehend an abstract idea like that? Walee adaa cirka roob ku og, Che-ow.

^ The Ethiopians weren't all they were cracked up to be saaxib. They got a serious whooping and screamed for help. The more of us they kill, the worse it'll be for them and for Yeey.

I would be very happy if I didn't have to see a new picture of this puppet bast*rd every morning while the country is being bombed.

How many countries and armies does it take to defeat a group of rag-tag "Islamists" numbering no more than 3,500? Four apparently: The United States, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.

New U.S. strikes hit sites in Somalia Wed Jan 10, 2007 7:17 PM IST By Sahal Abdulle MOGADISHU (Reuters) - U.S. forces hunting al Qaeda suspects hit four locations in new air strikes in Somalia on Wednesday, a Somali government source said, as criticism mounted over Washington's military intervention. "As we speak now, the area is being bombarded by the American air force," the source told Reuters. He said the attacks hit an area close to Ras Kamboni, a coastal village near the Kenyan border where many fugitive Islamists are believed holed-up after being defeated by Ethiopian troops defending Somalia's interim government. Four places were hit -- Hayo, Garer, Bankajirow and Badmadowe, the source said. "Bankajirow was the last Islamist holdout. Bankajirow and Badmadowe were hit hardest," he added. Lawmaker Abdirashid Mohamed Hidig said at least 50 people were killed in strikes he said were carried out by U.S. and Ethiopian planes. It was unclear how either Hidig or the government source were able to distinguish between Ethiopian and U.S. aircraft. "Yesterday I personally saw the planes striking. The air strikes resumed this morning," Hidig told reporters in the port of Kismayu after returning from a tour of the attacked areas. "The worst loss has befallen civilians since the fleeing Islamists are hiding among the people there," he said, adding he was airlifted to the sites in an Ethiopian helicopter. Pentagon officials confirmed one air attack on Monday, as part of a wider offensive including Ethiopian planes. U.S. officials said the strike was aimed at an al Qaeda cell that includes suspects in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa and a 2002 attack on an Israeli-owned Kenyan hotel. Somali officials said many died in Monday's strike -- the first overt U.S. military action in Somalia since a disastrous humanitarian mission ended in 1994. A clan elder reported a second U.S. air strike on Tuesday, but that was not confirmed by other sources. The U.S. actions were defended by Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, but criticised by others including new U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, the European Union, and former colonial power Italy. "The secretary-general is concerned about the new dimension this kind of action could introduce to the conflict and the possible escalation of hostilities that may result," U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said. Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said Rome opposed "unilateral initiatives that could spark new tensions in an area that is already very destabilised". EMBASSY BOMBINGS Monday's U.S. attack on a southern village by an AC-130 plane firing automatic cannon was believed to have killed one of three al Qaeda suspects wanted for the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, a U.S. intelligence official said. Washington is seeking a handful of al Qaeda members including Abu Talha al-Sudani, who U.S. intelligence believes is the network's east Africa commander. Critics of the action say it could misfire by creating strong Somali resentment and feeding Islamist militancy. "Before this, it was just tacit support for Ethiopia. Now the U.S. has fingerprints on the intervention and is going to be held more accountable," said Horn of Africa expert Ken Menkhaus. "This has the potential for a backlash both in Somalia and the region." Ethiopia sent troops across the border late last month to oust Islamists who had held most of the south since June and threatened to overrun the weak government at its Baidoa base. In the capital Mogadishu, residents were woken by gunfire before dawn on Wednesday in an area housing Ethiopian and Somali troops, who were targeted in a rocket attack on Tuesday. One corpse lay in the street, witnesses said. In another attack, at least one person was killed on Wednesday when Somali militiamen fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an Ethiopian truck, missing it but hitting a house, a government source said. Quoting U.S. and French military sources, ABC News said U.S. special forces were working with Ethiopian troops on the ground in operations inside Somalia. But Interior Minister Hussein Mohamed Aideed denied the report. "There are no American ground forces inside Somalia. The American involvement is limited to air and sea," he said. President Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi have pledged to restore order in Somalia after entering the capital for the first time since they took office in 2004 at the head of an internationally-recognised interim government. Both have called for African peacekeepers to help fill a security vacuum that is expected when Ethiopian troops pull out. The government has called on militias to report to various police stations for recruitment in the country's security forces, a government spokesman said. (Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed in Mogadishu, David Morgan and Sue Pleming in Washington, Philip Pullella in Rome, Irwin Arieff in the United Nations, Andrew Cawthorne in Nairobi and Noor Ali in Garissa) Reuters

Originally posted by Jacaylbaro: The president finally met with Meles Zenawi to discuss the recent developments in Somalia and they both agreed to upgrade the security and to increase the trade between the two countries. Did Zenawi then give it to the "president" doggy style or did they stick to the usual missionary position? :rolleyes:

Wed Jan 10, 2007 8:32 AM GMT By Lesley Wroughton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The World Bank on Tuesday approved $175 million in grant funding to help avoid chronic food shortages in Ethiopia, long prone to drought and famine, and said the program would not be affected by fighting against Islamists in neighboring Somalia. Trina Hague, the bank's lead economist and team leader, said the funding is part of an estimated $1 billion in aid promised for the program by Britain, the European Union, United States, Ireland, Canada and other international agencies like the World Food Program. Hague said there was a financing gap of $195 million but noted that the United States had not yet finalized its contribution. She said the second phase of the Productive Safety Net Program, first launched in 2005, would cover about 7.23 million people in areas throughout the country most frequently hit by food shortages. The project has helped ween families from humanitarian aid by introducing a jobs program in which rural farmers can earn cash or food in exchange for helping to maintain roads, plant trees and restore the environment in general. "Three-quarters of the households that have been assisted have reported they are consuming more and better quality food, which 90 percent of them attribute to the program," Hague told Reuters. The new funding comes amid a surge in conflict in the Horn of Africa as Ethiopia and Somalia's interim government oust Islamist fighters who took control of Somalia's capital Mogadishu in June. The United States launched air strikes on Tuesday against al Qaeda suspects among fleeing Islamist fighters, believed responsible for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa and a hotel on the Kenyan coast. But Hague said the conflict would not impact the operations of the program. "The program is focused on the very poorest of the poor in Ethiopia and on its own merits it needs to continue," she said, "It doesn't cover the Somali region of Ethiopia and we will under the program be starting some piloting under the safety net. It won't be financed by the World Bank, but will have some bilateral food aid contributions," she added. "The region of Somali will not be included in a fully fledged way until later," she added. "In the meantime, the Somali region does get assistance under the humanitarian system, which the government operates and we expect that to continue," Hague said. Reuters

Somalia is Iraq writ small The series of blunders and willful miscalculations that led to our present predicament in Iraq are now being replicated in Somalia, where a rather large U.S. footprint is being stamped into the hard Somali soil. Well, it isn't a footprint, quite yet, but rather a series of bomb craters, where the lives of "many" civilians, according to news reports, have been summarily ended. U.S. bombing raids, ostensibly aimed at al-Qaeda fighters supposedly hidden among native Islamic militias, have succeeded in killing scores, albeit none of the three dudes we are allegedly after. That's right: we're bombing a country because we're after a terrorist trio – Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 225 people, and accomplices Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Abu Talha al-Sudani. While the Pentagon refuses to confirm or deny whether any of these guys were killed in the attacks, you can bet we would have touted our success to the skies if they had gotten even one. On the other hand, at least 27 civilians were killed in Afmadow, a town in southern Somalia."My 4-year-old boy was killed in the strike," said Mohamed Mahmud Burale, who can hardly be expected to be grateful for his "liberation" at the hands of the U.S. and its Ethiopian allies. Oh well, it's just another day in Washington's "war on terrorism." If America is once again playing its role as world policeman, in this case we are clearly casting ourselves as the Keystone Kops. The Washington Post reports: "The Bush administration has been leading an international diplomatic effort to stabilize Somalia, including organizing an African peacekeeping force. It has called on leaders of Somalia's new transitional government to negotiate a power-sharing arrangement with moderate members of the Islamic leadership who are not seen as terrorist facilitators and who are supported by a significant segment of Somali clans." Unfortunately, however: "The Americans have gone for the jugular. The danger is that the high loss of life reported and the likelihood that many non-al-Qaeda sympathisers have been killed, including more moderate leaders of the defeated Union of Islamic Courts, could see the operation backfire spectacularly and unite Somalis against its new US-supported government." The Americans have gone for their own jugular, because this will come back to haunt them – indeed, the ghosts of the slain are already exacting their revenge in the form of a developing insurgency. Mogadishu is roiled by protests, and the premature celebration of a "victory" in Somalia – taken up by the neocon set as an exemplar of how to do it right – is being rapidly undermined by the intrusion of reality. Any day now, I expect President Bush to burble the equivalent of "mission accomplished!" Then I'll know we're up to our necks in another quagmire, this time in the Horn of Africa – the only region on earth that rivals the Middle East in the persistence and intensity of its continuous warfare. It has the potential to become much worse than Iraq, however, albeit on a smaller scale. Because this time we're coming in on the heels of another foreign invader, Ethiopia, which is largely Christian (Coptic) and historically at odds with the Somalis: indeed, the Somali-Ethiopian relations are almost as bad as Ethiopia's longstanding loggerheads with neighboring Eritrea. If World War II saw Ethiopia as the first exemplar of Axis aggression, the archetypal victim of imperialist aggression, since that time it has taken on the role of local bully and would-be hegemon, battling either Somalia or Eritrea on seven occasions – to say nothing of its own long drawn out civil war (1974-91). In Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's "President," we have a real winner, and I don't mean that in a good way. I put the scare quotes around his title because the Ethiopian electoral process is, shall we say, flawed – the first contest, boycotted by opposition parties, installed Zenawi in the office he had already occupied on an "interim" basis. The second time around, when he did face real opposition, Zenawi's party stole the election outright. Protests were stamped out with an iron heel, with Ethiopian troops firing on unarmed crowds: 193 were killed and many more wounded. Now a full partner in Washington's "war on terrorism," Zenawi's Ethiopia has one of the darkest human rights records in Africa: just south of Darfur [.pdf] the Ethiopians are conducting a campaign of systematic ethnic cleansing against dissident ethnic groups, such as the Anuak. In the desperately poor and violence-ridden Gambella region, and elsewhere throughout the country, Zenawi is conducting a terrorist campaign against his own people – yet he is now hailed as a great "anti-terrorist" fighter, both by the warlords of Washington and those of Somalia. The absurdity and criminality of our policy in the Horn of Africa is underscored by the ascension of Hussein Mohamed Aideed, the son of the hated warlord – and America's nemesis – Mohamed Farah Aideed, the villain of the "Black Hawk Down" narrative. When daddy died, sonny boy inherited the old warlord's mantle, which was suddenly transmuted into the white robes of a heroic pro-American ally. The only difference between father and son being that Aideed the Younger emigrated to America, grew up in southern California, and joined the Marines before he returned to become Interior Minister in the "transitional government" now being installed into semi-permanence by the U.S. and Ethiopia. He's our warlord, a reality that recalls Roosevelt's infamous remark about Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. U.S. intervention is limited, as far as we know, to air strikes, but, as I pointed out not so long ago, the presence of American "boots on the ground" is only a matter of time, and probably not much time at that. Certainly we are positioned to directly intervene, what with the U.S. military base of operations in nearby Djibouti. As to whether we'll be seeing a "surge" against the developing Somali insurgency around this time next year – or sooner – is more than a matter of pure speculation. Now is the time to cut through the rhetorical subterfuge engaged in by this administration, and its Democratic enablers, and ask ourselves if this is what we really want. This time, we have the option to reject a course that is every day being proven wrong, and destructive to American interests: as to whether we will have the courage and the presence of mind to make the right decision, I have my doubts. They never learn, and that's why our foreign policy is a recurring nightmare. Unless the American people wake up in time, we are bound to repeat in East Africa the same mistakes we made in the Middle East, with similarly deadly consequences. AntiWar.com

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN and MARK MAZZETTI MOGADISHU, Somalia, Jan. 9 — Somali officials said Tuesday that dozens of people were killed in an American airstrike on Sunday, most of them Islamist fighters fleeing in armed pickup trucks across a remote, muddy stretch of the KenyaSomalia border. American officials said terrorists from Al Qaeda had been the target of the strike, which they said had killed about a dozen people. But the officials acknowledged that the identities of the victims were still unknown. Several residents of the area, in the southern part of the country, said dozens of civilians had been killed, and news of the attack immediately set off new waves of anti-American anger in Mogadishu, Somalia’s battle-scarred capital, where the United States has a complicated legacy. “They’re just trying to get revenge for what we did to them in 1993,” said Deeq Salad Mursel, a taxi driver, referring to the infamous “Black Hawk Down” episode in which Somali gunmen killed 18 American soldiers and brought down two American helicopters during an intense battle in Mogadishu. The country’s Islamist movement swiftly seized much of Somalia last year and ruled with mixed success, bringing a much desired semblance of peace but also a harsh brand of Islam. Two weeks ago, that all changed after Ethiopian-led troops routed the Islamist forces and helped bring the Western-backed transitional government to Mogadishu. Ethiopian officials said the Islamists were a growing regional threat. The last remnants of the Islamist forces fled to Ras Kamboni, an isolated fishing village on the Kenyan border that residents said had been used as a terrorist sanctuary before. Starting in the mid-1990s, they said, the Islamists built trenches, hospitals and special terrorist classrooms in the village and taxed local fisherman to pay the costs. On Sunday, an American AC-130 gunship pounded the area around Ras Kamboni, and also a location father north where American officials said three ringleaders of the bombings in 1998 of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were hiding. Somali officials said those bombings had been planned in Ras Kamboni after a local Somali terrorist outfit invited Al Qaeda to use the village as a base. According to Abdul Rashid Hidig, a member of Somalia’s transitional parliament who represents the border area, the American airstrike on Sunday wiped out a long convoy of Islamist leaders trying to flee deeper into the bush, though he said he did not know if the specific suspects singled out by the United States had been with them. “Their trucks got stuck in the mud and they were easy targets,” he said. Mr. Hidig toured the area with military officials on Tuesday and said he had met several captured foreign fighters who had come from Europe and the Middle East. “I saw two white guys and asked, Where are you from?” Mr. Hidig said. “One said Jordan, the other Sweden. Yeah, it was weird.” Mr. Hidig said two civilians had been killed by the airstrike, but representatives of the Islamist forces said it had killed many more. The Islamists’ health director said dozens of nomadic herdsmen and their families were grazing their animals in the same wet valley that the Islamists were trying to drive across. “Their donkeys, their camels, their cows — they’ve all been destroyed,” he said. “And many children were killed.” He spoke by telephone from an undisclosed location; his account could not be independently verified. Mustef Yunis Culusow, a former Islamist leader who abandoned the movement days ago, said the once-powerful Islamist movement’s top leaders were now trapped in a small village with Ethiopian soldiers in front of them, the Indian Ocean behind them and now American gunships circling above them. “The leaders know they’re finished,” Mr. Culusow said in a telephone interview from Kismayo, a large town north of Ras Kamboni. “They’ve basically told the young fighters they can go, it’s over, and that anyone who stays behind should be resigned to die.” For several days, Ethiopian fighter jets and helicopter gunships have been laying down a blanket of fire over the area, and attacks continued on Tuesday. American military and intelligence officials expressed confidence that at least one senior Qaeda leader in Somalia had been killed in the American attack or subsequent strikes by Ethiopian troops. One official said Abu Taha al-Sudani — a Sudanese aide to Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who is thought to be the ringleader of Al Qaeda’s East African cell — might have been killed. American military and intelligence officials said that they expected further military strikes but that the terrorism suspects were probably traveling separately and trying to blend into the civilian population. Pentagon and intelligence officials said the Ethiopian offensive had unearthed fresh intelligence about the location of Qaeda operatives whose trail had long gone cold. “When you disrupt things and people move around, they become easier to target,” said one American counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “They have to make arrangements on the fly, and they become easier to find.” American and Ethiopian forces are sharing intelligence to pinpoint the whereabouts of the terrorism suspects and their entourages. The Pentagon announced that the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower had been dispatched to the region to tighten a naval blockade off the Somali coast. Washington’s decision to wade back into Somalia was, in a way, a culmination of America’s seesaw policy toward the country in the last five years. With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan consuming the attention of national security planners in Washington, the Bush administration’s interest in Somalia was driven primarily by fact that a handful of Qaeda operatives responsible for attacks in the Horn of Africa were thought to be hiding there. America’s recent forays into Somalia have tended to backfire. President Clinton abruptly curtailed a large American-led aid mission in the 1990s after the 18 soldiers were killed, leaving the country in a swirl of chaos and bloodshed, where much of it remains. Then, last summer, American efforts to finance a band of Mogadishu warlords as a bulwark against the growing Islamist movement stumbled when many Somalis learned of the hidden American hand and threw their support behind the Islamists. With the Pentagon still snakebitten by its experience in Somalia — rendering a ground offensive in the lawless country unpalatable — there was little the thousands of American soldiers and marines stationed in neighboring Djibouti could do to track down the Qaeda suspects. Until this week, Washington was content to remain behind the scenes and use the Ethiopian invasion as the public face of the effort against the Islamists and their allies. Now the Islamists have lost their grip on the country, and Somalia could be close to a turning point. For the first time since 1991, when the military dictator Mohammed Siad Barre fled, plunging the country into anarchy, there is a potentially viable government in the capital. But its survival depends on the thousands of Ethiopian troops still here, and increasingly, it seems, many Somalis do not like them. For their part, the Ethiopians have vowed not to stay much longer. Some call the Ethiopians infidel invaders because Ethiopia is a country with a long Christian identity, though it is in fact half Muslim. Others do not like them because Ethiopia is a close ally of the United States, which is why American airstrikes could make things difficult for the Ethiopians and transitional government officials. Some Islamists have vowed to carry on as an Iraq-style insurgency, and on Tuesday night two truckloads of gunmen attacked Ethiopian troops based at a government building, the former Ministry of Skins and Hides, in downtown Mogadishu. The booms of rocket-propelled grenades echoed across town and set off a two-minute gunfight. As shoppers in a nearby market ducked for cover, spent shells clinked on the pavement. Afterward, residents reported seeing two bodies on the street. Jeffrey Gettleman reported from Mogadishu, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington. Mohammed Ibrahim and Yuusuf Maxamuud contributed reporting from Mogadishu. NY Times

^ I dunno saaxib if Qabiil alone can explain it all. I'm not a social or political scientist and I'm baffled by many of the same questions that you have. Qabiil is powerful but probably not as powerful as ignorance or greed. Some years ago I read a book on psychology that talked about our innate empathy with the suffering of fellow man. Somewhere along the line, due to nurture, I suspect, we lose some of that empathy and find the suffering of others acceptable as long as the goal is "worthy". The degree to which empathy is lost and the worthiness of the goal are subjective matters that vary from person to person. Who knows, saaxib. Maybe A/Y is a good Muslim who's completely misunderstood. May be he's really trying to rebuild this broken nation using any tools at his disposal. It's improbable but not impossible.

Originally posted by Didi Kong: You'll never find people who are more pro-Somaliweyn then this clan. This is even more outrageous than Caamir's generalization. I kept asking him the question just to make a point and not necessarily to get any serious response. Did you say "never"? I know you didn't read this from a "primary source of information" ( ) and even if you are from that "clan" (whichever one it is), there's no way you could know, with any certainty, let alone the certainty of using "never", the accuracy of such a statement.

Originally posted by -Serenity-: And to add injury to insult, all the news channels kept making references to al-qaeda in Somalia being the reason. What happened to decent and honest journalism? Can we blv anything these days? Usually no. And in this case, definitely no. Here's some questions you should ask yourself. These 3 "Al-Qaeda" men have allegedly been in Somalia since before the 1998 embassy bombings, at least 8 years. If that's the case, then, first, what intelligence does the US have now (knowing that the ICU only controlled Southern Somalia for only 6 months of those 8 years) that they didn't have at any other point in those 8 years. Remember, Southern Somalia during most of that time was ruled by warlords many of whom were paid by the CIA. Second, assuming this new evidence has presented itself in the window of opportunity created by the Ethiopian invasion, why not use the Ethiopians (who are already on the ground) to come in and kill or arrest these guys? Third, using an AC-130, a hammer, to kill a fly, the terrorists, would seem extreme overkill, wouldn't you say? Using that type of plane means there really was no pinpoint knowledge of the whereabouts of the alleged terrorists as the plane must spend time traveling from Djibouti to Southern Somalia. And even if there was solid evidence of their whereabouts that night (and it was the middle of the night when this occurred) they must shoot at and mow down anyone moving around in that area no matter the reason they were moving around. Finally, the alleged predator drones (the unmanned aerial vehicles) that was tracking the men could have easily been tracking anyone else for there's no way they could do facial recognition from any decent altitude without being sighted. But even if the predator drones already knew who and where the men being tracked were, why didn't it fire missiles at them and kill them instead of dispatching an entire AC-130 all the way from Djibouti to carpet bomb the area? If there was ground intelligence (in the form of paid Somalis or Special Ops personnel) why didn't those get the job done? Do you wanna know why all these massive raids occurred? It's because the Ethiopians met stiffer than expected opposition and may even have been suffering too many casualties to continue the fight. The US was not going to be embarrassed after all the political cover they gave the Ethiopians. No way, no how. And most of all, the US public had to be reminded about the never-ending "war on terror" who's focal point will be receiving a boost of up to 40,000 troops to be announced Wednesday. I hope this helps.

Originally posted by Caamir: Castro, since you are secessionist, how come you haven't spoken out of the policy of forced deportatation of IDPs and the turning over of Rer Godey into the Ethiopian hands? I didn't know I was a secessionist but if you insist. I also wish I knew enough about the situation with IDPs to offer a serious response. I haven't pursued it in enough depth to venture a serious opinion. Sorry to disappoint. Now back to my original question, why is it nonsensical that a clan could be divided on an issue?

LOL. Walahi anything is possible this day and age. But right wing Somali politics is interesting specially when superimposed with clan politics. Remarkable indeed.

Originally posted by Caamir: Majority of Sool populace are with Puntland. It does not appeal to the common sense that one clan would be divided on seperate allegiancies. Why does it not "appeal to the common sense"? Are we talking about a one-person clan here? Originally posted by Alle-ubaahne: He came to boston, and I was told he is a nice guy, but with little courage to speak up in this difficult times of our nation! Conflict resolution requires courage so he must have it. What I'd like to hear about are his views on the invasion, occupation, the Islamic Courts, the puppet regime, the US bombing, etc.. Has he ever been interviewed on these issues?

You never know, when you wake up in the morning, which Islamic country Bush may have bombed during the night. Somalia was the latest. The United States is not at war with Somalia. In fact, it helped overthrow the Islamist government of Somalia just a few days ago. The new government is doing Bush’s bidding, and gave him its blessings for the attack. But did Congress give him its blessings? Somehow, I missed that. At Tuesday’s White House press briefing with Tony Snow, the President’s spokesman was asked: “Did the President consult with the Hill before the military operation in Somalia?” Snow answered: “I don’t believe there was a consultation on that one. I’m aware of none.” The White House said it was aiming for the mastermind of the U.S. embassy bombings back in 1998. And maybe it was. We don’t know for sure whether the bombing killed the mastermind. What we do know for sure is that Bush’s raid killed a couple of dozen civilians, according to the BBC, including a four-year-old boy. And that raises the question: How much value, if any, does the U.S. place on the lives of innocent people when it engages in these bombings? The answer appears to be not very much. Not very much in Iraq, where between 50,000 and more than ten times that number of civilians have been killed, thanks to Bush’s war. And not very much in Somalia. There’s another question to: What right does Bush have to launch bombs whenever he feels like it at whoever he feels like? And finally, how is the latest bomb-at-will exercise going to make the United States safer in the long run. Some in Mogadishu said “the attacks would only increase anti-American sentiment in the largely Muslim country,” the Independent of London reported. And the Italian foreign minister told the BBC that Rome opposed “unilateral initiatives that could spark new tensions.” The President is acting more and more like a reckless assassin. The Progressive

^ Of course, I'm referring to Hugo.

Don't ask Xalane. He doesn't know. Duke and Caamir are followers of right-wing political theories so they'd answer no. If they were American, they'd be conservative republicans. Sophist, I don't know. He probably likes to come across as a liberal democrat so at first he'd say yes, but he has some repressed conservative issues yet to be dealt with and he'd later say no. You and I, of course, are Chavistas.