Somalia: not piracy catch all thread
13 May Washington Post commentary - Ethiopia's Iraq by David Ignatius.
Quote:
"Get it done quickly and get out." That, says a senior U.S. diplomat here, was the goal of the little-noticed war that Ethiopia has been fighting, with American support, against Islamic extremists in Somalia. But this in-and-out strategy encounters the same real-world obstacles that America is facing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Conflict is less the problem than what comes after it. That's the dilemma that America and its allies are discovering in a world where war-fighting and nation-building have become perversely mixed. It took the Ethiopians just a week to drive a Muslim radical movement known as the Islamic Courts from Mogadishu in December. The hard part wasn't chasing the enemy from the capital but putting the country back together...
Somalia: not piracy catch all thread
3 June Washington Post - U.S. Warship Fires Missiles at Fighters in Somalia by Stephanie McCrummen.
Quote:
A U.S. Navy destroyer launched an attack on foreign fighters in a remote corner of northeastern Somalia late Friday, according to a senior U.S. official, though details of the operation remained sketchy.
The bombardment was concentrated in and around the port town of Bargaal, the official said Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information is classified...
Somalia Continues its Political Collapse
14 June Power and Interest News Report - Somalia Continues its Political Collapse by Dr. Michael A. Weinstein.
Quote:
... Somalia's weak and internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) continues to be a severely impaired participant in the country's multiple conflicts, facing a chronic insurgency in its official capital Mogadishu; unrest, lawlessness and failing control in the country's regions; and inadequate funding from international donors, on which it depends for its financial survival. Ethiopia, on which the T.F.G. depends for military protection, has been over-strained financially and is anxious to withdraw its forces, yet their replacement by an 8,000 member African Union (A.U.) peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) has yet to materialize, except for a contingent of 1,500 Ugandan troops, which have withdrawn to guard duty at Mogadishu's airport and seaport, and at government facilities, after one of its convoys was attacked on May 16.
Despite efforts by the T.F.G. to gain control of Mogadishu through a crackdown on armed opposition, closure of independent media outlets and arrests of leaders of the Hawiye clan, which is distrustful of the Darod-dominated T.F.G., the city remains insecure. Although donor states and international organizations have edged toward providing the T.F.G. with greater financial support, the transitional authority still lacks the resources to govern...
Eritrea 'Arming' Somali Militia
28 July BBC - Eritrea 'Arming' Somali Militia.
Quote:
Insurgents in Somalia have received huge numbers of weapons in secret shipments from Eritrea, the UN says.
There are now more arms in Somalia than at any time since the civil war started in 1991, the UN report says.
Eritrea, which has repeatedly denied aiding the insurgents, dismissed the report as a "total fabrication"...
Mujahideen in Somalia (w/fighter from U.S.) [al-Jazeera]
For those who know Arabic and wish to know...
Interesting al-Jazeera video of the Mujahideen fighting in Somalia... Nearly at the end you can see a video of a Muslim fighter from America fighting side by side with his Somali brothers.
http://www.aljazeera.net/mritems/str...19191_1_12.wmv
Somalia - President hospitilized
It could get really worse their if he dies or somehow becomes incapable of performing his duties. It will be just going back to 2003 again. May be we will see the rise of the Islamist Militias again as the real power in Somalia.
Whatever the case, I think its tragic for my homeland.
Remember Somalia is split
A quick point the old country of Somalia is no more. In the north east and essentially the old British Somaliland is a separate country, albeit not recognized by the UN or AU. Last time I looked it was stable and leaning towards a democracy.
davidbfpo
'US planes' bomb town in Somalia
Quote:
Islamist spokesman Sheikh Mukhtar Robow said the US was trying to hit Islamist hideouts in the area.
"The Americans bombed the town and hit civilians targets thinking that they were Islamist hideouts. They used an AC-130 plane," he told the AFP news agency.
Local official Ali Hussein told the BBC that many people were fleeing the town.
The border with Kenya has been closed for the past year.
Full story http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7274462.stm
Somalia sinks into greater chaos as Islamist insurgents gain ground
Somalia sinks into greater chaos as Islamist insurgents gain ground, International Herald Tribune, 28 March 2008.
Quote:
The trouble started when government soldiers went to the market and, at gunpoint, began helping themselves to sacks of grain.
Islamist insurgents poured into the streets to defend the merchants. The government troops got hammered, taking heavy casualties and retreating all the way back to the presidential palace, supposedly the most secure place in the city. It, too, came under fire.
Mohamed Abdirizak, a top government official, crouched on a balcony at the palace, with bullets whizzing over his head. He had just given up a cushy life as a development consultant in Springfield, Virginia. His wife thought he was crazy. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
"I feel this slipping away," he said.
Dilemmas of the Horn article in newsweek
This was just posted in the latest edition of Newsweek. A pretty provocative sub-title, but clearly, the author wants to send a message. Not sure anyone is listening, though.
Dilemmas of the Horn
Washington wanted to keep Somalia from turning into another Afghanistan. Now it's an African Iraq.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/131836
US air strike kills Aden Hashi Ayro
Quote:
Air raid kills Somali militants
The leader of the military wing of an Islamist insurgent organisation in Somalia has been killed in an overnight air strike.
Aden Hashi Ayro, al-Shabab's military commander, died when his home in the central town of Dusamareb was bombed.
Ten other people, including a senior militant, are also reported dead.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7376760.stm
Begining of the end for Ethiopian adventure?
Somali troops 'out of control'
Quote:
Somali government troops are out of control, as are their Ethiopian allies and other armed groups says human right's group Amnesty International.
It says the situation is "dire" in central and southern Somalia, with civilians completely at the mercy of armed groups on all sides.
Somalia: not piracy catch all thread
After the successful hit on the Al Quaeda, the response covered on SWJ Bog ranged from the ecstatic to the dismissive with:
and
Quote:
Somalia strike and offshore balancing
A helicopter-borne U.S. special operations group, apparently operating from a U.S. warship in the Indian Ocean, attacked and killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan along with several of his associates along a road in southern Somalia. According to the cited New York Times article, the U.S. special operations soldiers recovered the bodies and presumably other interesting intelligence products from the site.
and
Quote:
Alternate View: Somalia Strike and Offshore Balancing
OK, I’ll take the bait.
To offer the killing of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan as evidence of the success of a strategy of “offshore balancing” would be myopic in the extreme. By press accounts, it was a very well conducted SEAL raid, but let’s not confuse good tactics with good strategy.
Let’s begin with U.S. strategy toward Somalia. Since the withdrawal from Mogadishu in the wake of the “Black Hawk Down” incident – and let’s remember why this was Osama bin Laden’s favorite movie, an exemplar of America the “weak horse,” unable to run the course – keeping that failed state from becoming an al Qaeda haven has been a very narrowly run thing, at best.
Personally I found the following to be closer to the mark:
Quote:
Black Hawk’s Shadow
Why we don't care about Somalia anymore.
Picture Mogadishu in 1992. Marauding militias loyal only to Somali clan leaders stalk the city, looting aid shipments bound for the 1.8 million Somalis facing starvation. Then, from the green-blue Indian Ocean waters, there materializes a flotilla of U.S. transports bearing aid and armed men to deliver it. In the skies overhead, U.S. attack helicopters appear, providing cover for food shipments, while an American spy plane circles the city night and day gathering intelligence on militias trying to disrupt the rescue effort.
Flash forward 17 years to the same city, still surrounded by squalid refugee camps. More than twice as many Somalis are now teetering on the brink of starvation in what many view as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Militias of heavily armed young men still stalk the city hijacking aid shipments. This time, though, no one's coming to the rescue.
Somalia is in dire straits—maybe worse than ever. An estimated 3.8 million need humanitarian aid (fully half the population), according to the U.N.'s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit for Somalia, which calls the crisis the worst since 1991–92. In the past six months alone, the number of people forced from their homes by fighting—between the country's barely functional transitional government and Islamist insurgents—has grown by 40 percent, to 1.4 million. Most live in squalid camps that a new report from Oxfam calls "barely fit for humans."
So why don't we care anymore? The answer lies not only in how the giant U.S.-U.N. mission to Somalia came undone—in the ashes of the Black Hawk Down firefight in October 1993—but in a legacy of failures by both Somali and Western leaders to cure the country's ills.
Understanding the al-Shabaab Networks
ASPI, 13 Oct 09: Understanding the al-Shabaab Networks
Quote:
The decision by the Australian Government on 21 August 2009 to officially list the al-Shabaab group as a terrorist organisation highlights a subject of growing concern in many Western governments: what is the danger posed by the Somali-based group, and is it merely a regional actor? The question is one of growing salience as stories increasingly surface of young Western (or Westernised) men leaving their homes to fight and train with the Islamic warriors in Somalia. Furthermore, the growing parallels with the ‘chain of terror’ that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown highlighted, emanating from Pakistan’s lawless provinces through Europe’s Muslim communities, mean fears are growing that it might result in a terrorist attack on the scale of the Madrid or London bombings.
This article outlines the growing sense of apparent threat in the West from networks linked in some way to al-Shabaab. It offers some brief thoughts on the growing links between what are herein termed ’the Shabaab networks’ and whether the threat from them is one than can be paralleled with the threat from the similarly structured al-Qaeda networks.
ISS, 3 Jun 09: Somalia: Understanding Al-Shabaab
Quote:
On 8 May 2009, Al-Shabaab reinforced by a faction of Hizbul Islam and former Islamic Courts Union’s (ICU) leader Sheikh Aweys began what they claimed was a final assault on the capital Mogadishu in an attempt to destroy President Sheikh Sharif’s fragile National Unity Government. A wave of targeted assassinations of ICU officials and Al-Shabaab commanders in mid-April onwards, the reshuffling of military and political alliances among Islamist factions and inflammatory rhetoric that has led to a polarization of political positions has all but eliminated prospects for reconciliation between the government and the opposition.
At the time of writing the government is managing to keep hold of southern Mogadishu. Nevertheless Al-Shabaab continues to gain ground in central Somalia and is positioning itself for what it hopes will be a decisive military victory.
This report briefly examines the nature of Al-Shabaab’s ideological stance, their political ambitions and why this movement constitutes the gravest threat to the survival of Sheikh Sharif’s government and the Djibouti peace process that gave it birth.
NEFA, 5 May 09: Shabaab al-Mujahideen: Migration and Jihad in the Horn of Africa
Quote:
Part I: The Early Years - Al-Ittihad al-Islami (AIAI) and “Blackhawk Down”
Part II: Ethiopia and the Ogaden War (1993-1997)
Part III: The Islamic Courts Union (ICU)
Part IV: Rise of the Shabaab al-Mujahideen Movement
Part V: The Current Status of Shabaab and its Islamist Rivals
Part VI: The Role of Foreign Fighters
Part VII: Shabaab’s Propaganda Strategy and Media Infrastructure
Part VIII: Shabaab al-Mujahideen and the Issue of Ocean Piracy
Somalia has not gone away, just emptying
We and the media focus on the piracy off the Somalia coast, no doubt as it is safer to report on and few reporters venture into Somalia today. Here is an exception a grim report on the people trapped there and seeking to leave - for the "settled" north aka as Somaliland and beyond. Now if this could be used in Info Ops against Al-Shabaab on You Tube plus - to show what their rule means I would applaud.
The link:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...litia-refugees - with a six minute video (yes not guaranteed to be viewable).
Somalia: not piracy catch all thread
Moderators Note
I have combined several small threads on non-piracy aspects of Somalia just as it makes sense.
Al-Shabaab say no to UN food
I trust someone will use this apparent decision by Al-Shabaab to bar UN food supplies to Somalia as an illustration of the care for the masses Al-Shabaab shows.
The report:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...ss_world/wires
Quote:
On Sunday, al-Shabab said it would prohibit the U.N.'s World Food Program from distributing food in areas under its control because it says the food undercuts farmers selling recently harvested crops.
It also accused the agency of handing out food unfit for human consumption and of secretly supporting "apostates," or those who have renounced Islam.
I wonder how much local food is being produced and from faraway will it be enough?
Land piracy grabs UN food trucks
Self-explanatory and occurred in Puntland (from a large scale map):http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8545485.stm
Quote:
New land tactics being employed by Somali pirates may be a cause for concern, a UN spokesman told the BBC. Peter Smerdon said three trucks and their drivers were being held in the pirate town of Eyl after delivering food aid last week in central Somalia.
No wonder Somalis want to exit and WFP has problems getting funding. Will Somalia be the first country to have no people?
Somalia: not piracy catch all thread
AEI Somalia Online Briefing
From SWJ Blog (with fuller details)
Via E-mail: Please join American Enterprise Institute Resident Scholar, and Director of the Critical Threats Project, Frederick W. Kagan on Monday, April 5, 2010 from 1:30 to 2:30 pm for a live online video briefing on the terror threat from Somalia. Also contributing to the discussion will be Critical Threats Analyst Christopher Harnisch who will discuss the Somali terror group al Shabaab.
While American efforts to combat international terrorism continue to focus on the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, other regions have become safe havens for militant Islamist groups. This terror threat became a reality when an operative of an al Qaeda franchise based in Yemen tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane with nearly three hundred people on board, on Christmas Day 2009.
Today, a terror threat is growing in Somalia, across from Yemen on the Gulf of Aden. A militant Islamist group called al Shabaab (resembling a hybrid of al Qaeda and the Taliban) has explicitly threatened to attack the United States. This terror group has established radical Islamist administrations that govern large parts of southern Somalia – more territory than any other militant Islamist group in the world. It operates terrorist training camps, views itself as part of the global jihad led by Osama bin Laden, has dozens of operatives from the United States and Europe, and has followed through on previous threats made against Somali targets. The threat posed by al Shabaab is real and imminent, and Americans should not be surprised if the group tries to attack the U.S.
CFR report Somalia - A new approach
I would be interested in what the rest of you think.
It is very close to my position, which is not always quite how other council members see things.
Somalia - A new approach by Bronwyn Bruton
I'm not a CFR fan but I do agree with that
monograph. The American penchant for 'fixing' things is not at all helpful in many cases...