U.S. Takes Hunt for Al Qaeda to Somalia
U.S. Takes Hunt for Al Qaeda to Somalia - 10 January Christian Science Monitor.
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... U.S. military officials say that Somalia's lawless state had become a safe haven for Al Qaeda activists, including possibly those responsible for the embassy bomb attacks in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in 1998.
This week's attacks illustrate how much US military policy has changed since Sept. 11, 2001. As the U.S. closes or downsizes massive cold war-era bases in Germany and South Korea, its presence is expanding in Uganda, Djibouti, Senegal, and São Tomé and Príncipe, African nations once seen as far beyond American interests. Today, African bases serve both as "jumping off" points for the war in Iraq and also as bulwarks against new threats in volatile regions of Africa...
The Quiet War in the Horn of Africa
28 January Virginia Pilot - The Quiet War in the Horn of Africa by Kate Wiltrout.
Quote:
A curious crowd of women and men in billowing skirts streamed toward the landing zone as two U.S. Marine helicopters touched down on rocky African desert.
The Marines had pistols strapped to their legs, but the choppers from New River Marine Corps Air Station in North Carolina were doves, not hawks.
Inside were an Air Force doctor and a team of Army civil affairs specialists on a mission to bring help – and hope – to 12,000 Somali refugees.
The forbidding landscape is a 20-minute flight – but seems a world apart – from Djibouti’s capital city, where the U.S. military has established a base, Camp Lemonier.
U.S. air strikes on suspected terrorists in Somalia this month called the world’s attention to the region.
However, the U.S. military has been quietly engaged in the Horn of Africa since 2002, using about 1,500 troops to build schools and medical clinics, dig wells, treat sick people and inoculate livestock. Dozens of Navy sailors and officers from Hampton Roads are part of the force, and more are preparing to head to Djibouti in early February.
With its mission to win hearts and minds through goodwill, this unorthodox military operation looks more like the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps. But the effort is primarily to deter al-Qaida and Muslim extremists from spreading throughout a region rife with poverty and despair...
The Ugandan's of AMISOM have arrived
From a CNN article today:
Around 400 Ugandan forces flew into the airport on Monday as the first contingent of the African Union Mission in Somalia -- AMISOM -- charged with helping the war-torn country rebuild.
Around 1,100 further troops are expected to arrive in the next 24 hours. The mission, organized by the African Union, consists of more than 7,600 ground troops, plus police training teams and air and maritime security patrols.
You have to love these quotes :wry: :
"We are very happy to be the first African Union peacekeepers to Somalia. We are welcomed here," Paddy Akunda, the Ugandan forces' spokesman, said prior to the attack.
"We are not imposing anything on Somalis. We know our mandate; we will work toward restoring law and order in Somalia without targeting anybody."
I wonder why I am rolling my eyes right now...Oh yeah, therre were also reports of a mortar attack on the airport during the arrival ceremony. Why the pomp and circumstance? It's not a media show they are headed to - it is the octagon, and they'd better get there stuff squared away quick or they'll spend the tour hunkered down behind barriers and white-washed walls.
I'd actually like to go back to Mogadishu, just to see what has or hasn't changed in 13 years.
And more bloodletting has begun
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- An attack on African Union peacekeepers and an ensuing gunbattle killed at least 10 civilians in the Somali capital, witnesses and hospital officials said Thursday.
Wednesday evening's ambush of the peacekeepers -- the first to arrive in Mogadishu in more than a decade -- happened at a main intersection in the capital, one of the most dangerous and gun-infested cities in the world.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa....ap/index.html
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the AU force is in for a rude awakening.
Al-Qa’ida's (mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa
CTC, 1 May 07: Al-Qa’ida's (mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa
Quote:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point is pleased to present the report,
Al-Qa’ida's (mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa. Based on a collection of al-Qa’ida documents recently released from the Department of Defense’s Harmony Database, this report provides an analysis of al-Qa’ida’s early operations in the Horn of Africa. These documents, captured in the course of operations supporting the Global War on Terror, have never before been available to the academic and policy community.
Al-Qa’ida's (mis)Adventures in the Horn of Africa includes a theoretically informed analysis of al-Qa’ida’s successes and failures while operating in Somalia between 1992 and 1994. Case studies on
Somalia and
Kenya provide a historical and current analysis of al-Qa’ida’s operations in the Horn. Our theoretical analysis and case studies inform policy recommendations on how the U.S. and its coalition partners might address the threat of terrorism in failed and weak states within the Horn of Africa and globally. We have provided brief summaries of each of the released documents with full text translations in English and the original document in Arabic. We hope this report will serve as a useful resource in our collective efforts to better understand and combat al-Qa’ida and its affiliated movements.
The Americans Have Landed
"The Americans Have Landed" by Thomas Barnett http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Af...ed_Africa.html
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America is going to have an Africa Command for the same reason people buy real estate -- it's a good investment. Too many large, hostile powers surround Central Asia for the radical jihadists to expand there, but Africa? Africa's the strategic backwater of the world. Nobody cares about Africa except Western celebrities.
So as the Middle East middle-ages over the next three decades and Asia's infrastructural build-out is completed, only Africa will remain as a source for both youth-driven revolution and cheap labor and commodities. Toss in global warming and you've got a recipe for the most deprived becoming the most depraved.
The U.S., through its invasion and botched occupation of Iraq, has dramatically sped up globalization's frightening reformatting process in the Middle East, and with Africa on deck, the United States military is engaging in a highly strategic flanking maneuver.
non-kinetic effects in action...
Eritrea deployed 25,000 troops to Ethiopian border?
the Sudan Tribune is the only news source to report this. Anyone have any information to support or deny this info?
Eritrea deploying 25000 troops into Ethiopia border - opposition
Tuesday 23 October 2007.
October 22, 2007 (MEKELLE, Ethiopia) — The opposition Eritrean People Democratic Front (EPDF) today said, Eritrea recently has deployed over 25000 troops toward Ethiopia border.
“Eritrean 19 and 13 military division forces fully armed are deployed at the temporary security zone where UN peace keepers are deployed.” The opposition group said.
According to the EPDF’s statement Eritrea has break into the buffer zone, Temporary Security Zone, (TSZ) between the Eritrea and Ethiopia forces; and heavily started massing its troop
Ethiopia and Eritrea forces are now in less than 25 kms away from each other and recent tensions could break out in to a full war any time.
The group further said the government of Eritrea has imposed curfew in Senafe town and around.
’’The curfew imposed since last week and which the group said lasts from dusk to down aimed to control its fleeing citizens to Ethiopia in the cover of darkness.” The group added.
International observers say Eritrea violated the Alger agreement by sending troops to the demilitarized zone. Also the UN urged Eritrea to remove the restrictions placed by Eritrea upon UN mission forces between the two countries.
At the end of October 2005, Eritrea ordered the U.N. mission in Eritrea to "confine its land vehicle movements to the main roads" in the 25-kilometer wide demilitarized buffer zone.
The move was seen as a pressure from Eritrea intending to force the international community into taking action against Ethiopia, which has refused to accept an international ruling on the border made in 2002.
In 2000, Ethiopia and Eritrea ended a 2 1/2-year border war that killed 70,000 people and cost two of the poorest countries in the world an estimated $1 million a day each.
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article24373
War Brews on the New Frontier
This is an interesting article by Michela Wrong on how the deadline for the Algiers Agreement signed by Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2000 expires at the end of November and the implications for the future.
By the way, Small Wars Forum readers might appreciate Michela Wrong's book, "I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation", about Eritrea, especially Chapter 10, titled "Blowjobs, Bugging and Beer" about U.S. Military base called Kagnew Station in Eritrea. For more info from one of her sources of that article, go to http://www.geozazz.com/wrongreview.htm
Quote:
War brews on the new frontier
Michela Wrong
Published 25 October 2007
Michela Wrong reports on the tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea and the war brewing on the new frontier
A grim deadline expires in a few weeks' time. It will pass unnoticed by the British public, but that doesn't make it any less important, not just for the two nations involved, but for Africa as a whole. For it sets the seal on an abject failure by the west to ensure that a vital African ally respects international law. And the act of defiance our governments have chosen to ignore will undermine peacemaking on the continent for decades to come.
At the end of November, the frontier separating Eritrea from Ethiopia becomes officially demarcated, in the teeth of Ethiopian opposition. For five years, Addis Ababa has done its best to prevent cement pillars being placed along a line designated by the international Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission in April 2002, a ruling that both states originally agreed was to be final and binding. The exasperated commission chairman, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, announced last November that if the stalemate continued, the border would automatically count as legally demarcated a year hence, pillars or no.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200710250023
Also see:
Ethiopia, Eritrea Trade Blame on Boundary Dispute
and
Algiers Agreement
Ethiopia and Eritrea: Stopping the Slide to War
Report calls on the UN to enforce the border demarcation and the US to send a clear message to both sides that war will not be tolerated. I've seen nothing from either the UN or the US in the public. Anyone know if there's been any diplomatic dialogue on this subject from the US side?
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Ethiopia and Eritrea: Stopping the Slide to War
Nairobi/New York/Brussels, 5 November 2007: The international community must act urgently to prevent Ethiopia and Eritrea from resuming their war and potentially throwing the entire Horn of Africa into new turmoil.
Ethiopia and Eritrea: Stopping the Slide to War,* the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, warns of the real risk of renewed conflict and calls on the international community to move fast to stop it. The UN Security Council and the U.S. in particular must give both sides the clearest message that no destabilising unilateral action will be tolerated, and that the parties must comply with their obligations under international law, disengage on the ground and restore the demilitarised Temporary Security Zone (TSZ).
“The military build-up on both sides has reached alarming proportions, and war could break out again within weeks,” says Gareth Evans, Crisis Group President. “There will be no easy military solution if that happens: we are looking at a protracted conflict on Eritrean soil, destabilisation of Ethiopia and a horrible new humanitarian crisis”.
Both sides had agreed in Algiers in 2000 to submit their border dispute to the Boundary Commission and accept its decision as final and binding. However, since its ruling in April 2002, Ethiopia has blocked physical demarcation of the border; Eritrea, with legal right on its side, then alienated many of its supporters by blocking the work of the UN peacekeepers. The issue will come to a decisive head – with a real risk of fighting breaking out – at the end of November, when the Boundary Commission has indicated it will close down unless it is allowed to proceed to demarcation.
The UN Security Council and the U.S. must urgently make it clear to both sides that no use of force will be tolerated and that a party that resorts to it will be held accountable. Specifically, the U.S. should send a firm message to Ethiopia, that it will take diplomatic and economic measures against it if it attacks Eritrea. The Security Council should pass a resolution reiterating its support for the Boundary Commission decision and requesting it to remain beyond the end of November.
The UN should also stress the requirements on Ethiopia to accept the Boundary Commission ruling and on Eritrea to withdraw its army from the TSZ. Members of the Security Council and other key international players should discuss economic incentives and disincentives that would likely be required to obtain cooperation in de-escalating the situation on the ground and implementing the Commission decision.
“In the next weeks, urgent outside assistance is needed to ensure that the shooting does not resume,” says Don Steinberg, Crisis Group Vice President for Multilateral Affairs. “International indifference or mistaken confidence could cost the people of the Horn of Africa dearly and lead to a new protracted conflict in the region”.
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5136&l=1
US to Double Aid to Ethiopia's Ogaden
It appears as if the USG's diplomatic efforts with Ethiopia are of the carrot variety. USAID administrator, Henrietta Fore met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to discuss tensions on the border with Eritrea and additional food aid to the Ogaden ($19 million to $45 million).
Regarding the potential conflict with Eritrea, Fore said "It is always easier to help a country at peace. It is because you can move around the country. People have more hope and more chance of having a little business, going to school, building a clinic," she added. "People always have more hope if there is stability and security in a country."
US Embassador to Ethiopia added that the two countries needed to resolve the disput themselves, but that a number of high level officials, including Rice herself, will be traveling to Ethiopia soon to impress on them the importance of preventing war.
Full story at http://voanews.com/english/2007-11-25-voa8.cfm
UN stays put in Eritrea, fears war - official
Well, still no diesel, but looks like we'll hang out just a tad longer.
Quote:
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Eritrea has ignored a U.N. deadline to grant peacekeepers on its border with Ethiopia access to badly needed fuel, but despite the shortfall, a U.N. official said U.N. troops are reluctant to leave because they fear war could erupt.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon set a Wednesday deadline for Eritrea to allow the U.N. peacekeepers to refuel, saying they faced a fuel crisis. But the U.N. official said on Thursday that Eritrea had ignored the deadline.
"The U.N. cannot afford to leave because it would create the conditions for a resumption of the conflict," a U.N. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "Abandoning our positions would sanctify a resumption of the conflict."
what options does the UN have?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Beelzebubalicious
Oooh, you'd better give us that diesel or we're gonna, we're gonna,... put our tails between our legs and bug out of here...bluff called. Now what?
I really don't think "tail between our legs" is quite fair here--it is a Chapter 6 monitor and verify mission, so UNMEE really has very limited leverage. The "we'll go if we don't get fuel" threat was partly a warning of impending operational necessity, partly a bluff intended to get the Eritreans to back down, but was also partly a wake-up call to the AU, UNSC, and others to get more engaged on the issue.
The bluff part failed, the other part may not have.
The UNMEE websites are here and here.
Some very good points, Rex...
Their mandate was recently extended and their mission far from over.
However, bluffing Africans has never resulted in a favorable outcome (at least not where I was stationed). A threat must sadly be carried out, or not used at all. The wake up call was a necessity and perhaps even a little late.
UN troops 'trapped' in Eritrea
UN troops 'trapped' in Eritrea
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7248085.stm
It would appear Eritrea is going to try and exploit the situation the UN force have got themselves into.