Somalia: not piracy catch all thread

[AdamG]

In something of a warning to all wannabe online mujahedeen, a 20-year-old student from northern Virginia was arrested today on charges of providing material support to al-Shabaab, the al-Qaida-aligned Somali extremist group.

Zachary Adam Chesser is the guy’s given name. But he went by several others: Abu Talhah, Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee. But Chesser’s highest profile appears to be online, where his sobriquets included TeachLearnFightDie and AlQuranWaAlaHadith. He posted on an apparently defunct blog called Themujahidblog.com and Revolutionmuslim.com, according to the affidavit of FBI Special Agent Mary Brandt Kinder, and he threatened the lives of the South Park creators for their portrayal of the prophet Mohammed. Searches for his uploaded videos led to the discovery of him getting pwned by one of the Jawa Report guys. (More on that below.)

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010...#ixzz0uMjzds6f

[JarodParker]

^ Interesting! We'll see if the charges stick?

Discussion of Somalia and Al-Shabab on last Sunday's Fareed Zakaria program. Skip to the 4:30min mark. Link

More on the model central Somali town covered by Gettleman - Adado

[M-A Lagrange]

Does anyone have any info on the somali army training by EU?
The attacks in Kampala may put an early end to such things. But it will certainly not generate a large scale western military intervention.

[davidbfpo]

Tks to FP:

Guinea is ready to immediately deploy a battalion to Mogadishu to boost the troubled African Union peacekeeping force in the Somali capital, AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping said Friday.

Link:http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100723...tsomaliaunrest

[davidbfpo]

Does anyone have any info on the somali army training by EU?

MA,

Not sure about the EU training mission, although my recollection was that something was underway in Kenya.

Perhaps this NYT op ed's following paragraph explains why external training is not the answer, indeed maybe the "fuel" for the crisis:

Yet in the past 18 months, the international community has trained some 10,000 Somali soldiers to support this government, and American taxpayers have armed them. Seven or eight thousand of these troops have already deserted, taking their new guns with them. Indeed, Somalia’s Western-backed army is a significant source of Al Shabab’s weapons and ammunition, according to the United Nations Monitoring Group.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/op...=1&ref=opinion

Alongside is Aidan Hartley's column on the Al Shabab leader, he is always worth reading and concludes:

What Mr. Roobow wants, as I witnessed on the road in Somalia, is a war against an alien enemy that will bring him international prestige and jihadi money before his group’s forces implode and his country’s people turn on him. The Uganda bombing is another reason the West has to find an intelligent diplomatic path out of Somalia’s crisis. A military backlash would give Mukhtar Roobow exactly the ammunition that he is looking for.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/op...ml?ref=opinion

[JMA]

MA,

Not sure about the EU training mission, although my recollection was that something was underway in Kenya.

Perhaps this NYT op ed's following paragraph explains why external training is not the answer, indeed maybe the "fuel" for the crisis:

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/op...=1&ref=opinion

Alongside is Aidan Hartley's column on the Al Shabab leader, he is always worth reading and concludes:

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/op...ml?ref=opinion

Where are the drones when we need them? Rather have a few of them than another few thousand Ugandan troops.

[huskerguy7]

Does anyone have any info on the somali army training by EU?

I've came across a few articles that discuss it (here and here)

MA,

Not sure about the EU training mission, although my recollection was that something was underway in Kenya.

I haven't heard anything about Kenya. However, the EU mission is taking place in Uganda. They plan to train 2,000 soldiers and police. The links above detail more information.

Also, recently, there has been a bolster in the AU Mission. Here is an interesting quote from Stratfor (PM me if you want it sent to you).

The 4,000 additional troops pledged to AMISOM will bring the force to a total of just over 10,000. The 2,000 soldiers from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development countries (Uganda most likely will be the country sending the troops) and the Guinean and Djiboutian troops will represent a significant increase to the 6,200-strong AMISOM force currently in Mogadishu. Of course, this assumes all the new soldiers make it there — something which cannot be taken for granted. The list of states that have reneged on pledges to send peacekeepers to Somalia since 2007 is longer than the list of countries that have actually followed through (Uganda and Burundi).

Also, since the bombing, Uganda has called for the mandate to be changed so Ugandan's can act more aggressively. More from Stratfor:

The AU did authorize an additional 4,000 peacekeepers for Somalia at the summit but left AMISOM’s mandate — which renders the force effectively a high-profile protection unit for areas under the control of the Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) — intact. Uganda, the largest contributor to AMISOM, responded by announcing that its troops in Mogadishu would begin acting more aggressively toward al Shabaab with a new interpretation of what qualifies as legitimate self-defense.

My opinion: I don't think the training is being done properly. As the article mentioned in the post above, troops are deserting and taking advantage of the services and weapons provided to them. If we want the training to succeed properly, I think that the trainers should be allowed to embed to a certain extent. This will require a heavier footprint, which has obvious negatives. However, embedded trainers would allow for more cooperation, better training, and possibly a more confident military. That's just an opinion though.

[JMA]

My opinion: I don't think the training is being done properly. As the article mentioned in the post above, troops are deserting and taking advantage of the services and weapons provided to them. If we want the training to succeed properly, I think that the trainers should be allowed to embed to a certain extent. This will require a heavier footprint, which has obvious negatives. However, embedded trainers would allow for more cooperation, better training, and possibly a more confident military. That's just an opinion though.

With respect you need to start with the selection of the people to be trained. There is little point in training, arming and equipping Somalis only to have them desert with their weapons.

Hundreds of German-financed Somali police officers go missing

U.S.-Trained Somali Troops Defect to Insurgency

Then of course the following jaw dropper Finns Training Somali Troops in Uganda. The Finns have the credentials to train anyone for warfare in Africa?

The hard question must be asked as to whether US and European funders have learned nothing about working in developing (African) countries? This is all pretty close to rank incompetence.