Somalia: not piracy catch all thread

[Rex Brynen]

New York Times
Somalia Worst Humanitarian Crisis in Africa, U.N. Says

AFGOOYE, Somalia, Nov. 19 — The worst humanitarian crisis in Africa may not be unfolding in Darfur, but here, along a 20-mile strip of busted-up asphalt, several top United Nations officials said.

A year ago, the road between the market town of Afgooye and the capital of Mogadishu was just another typical Somali byway, lined with overgrown cactuses and the occasional bullet-riddled building. Now it is a corridor teeming with misery, with 200,000 recently displaced people crammed into swelling camps that are rapidly running out of food.

...

Top United Nations officials who specialize in Somalia said the country had higher malnutrition rates, more current bloodshed and fewer aid workers than Darfur, which is often publicized as the world’s most pressing humanitarian crisis and has taken clear priority in terms of getting peacekeepers and aid money.

The relentless urban combat in Mogadishu, between an unpopular transitional government — installed partially with American help — and a determined Islamist insurgency, has driven waves of desperate people up the Afgooye road, where more than 70 camps of twigs and plastic have popped up seemingly overnight.

[tequila]

Something tells me that the Ethiopians will soon be knocking on Washington's door, looking for some kind of deal like the Pakistani Army is receiving now. Given a possible war with Eritrea, current "counterinsurgency" in the Ogaden, and brewing urban guerrilla war in Somalia, the Ethiopians will be in search of handouts. One wonders if we will be as recklessly generous as we have been with the Pakistani military --- thankfully the Ethiopians don't have a nuclear project or two to enable.

[SteveMetz]

Something tells me that the Ethiopians will soon be knocking on Washington's door, looking for some kind of deal like the Pakistani Army is receiving now. Given a possible war with Eritrea, current "counterinsurgency" in the Ogaden, and brewing urban guerrilla war in Somalia, the Ethiopians will be in search of handouts. One wonders if we will be as recklessly generous as we have been with the Pakistani military --- thankfully the Ethiopians don't have a nuclear project or two to enable.

FMF to Ethiopia has been declining recently with IMET increasingly slightly. I think you hit the nail on the head--there are four things that generate extensive security assistance from the United States: 1) having a significant AQ presence; 2) having nukes; 3) producing narcotics; 4) being Israel or a threat to Israel.

From Ethiopia's perspective, that's 0 for 4. But maybe the creation of AFRICOM will help.

[Mark O'Neill]

FMF to Ethiopia has been declining recently with IMET increasingly slightly. I think you hit the nail on the head--there are four things that generate extensive security assistance from the United States: 1) having a significant AQ presence; 2) having nukes; 3) producing narcotics; 4) being Israel or a threat to Israel.

From Ethiopia's perspective, that's 0 for 4. But maybe the creation of AFRICOM will help.

Target Round, out.

[Tom Odom]

Target Round, out.

Repeat, over.

[tequila]

I think they will strain to provide (1) as much as possible. Worked during the invasion in 2006, after all.

[Beelzebubalicious]

Maybe someone can help me understand something here. When the ICU was in power, they were fundamentalists who installed Sharia Law. I understand that there were extremist elements of the ICU who supported terrorism. To what extent were the extremists opposed/supported by the broader ICU? I want to break down and differentiate Islamic Fundamentalism and Islamic extremism/terrorism.

In terms of stability and security, was a fundamentalist Islamic state under ICU better than the umpteen transitional governments that have ruled in the last 15 years?

[wm]

In terms of stability and security, was a fundamentalist Islamic state under ICU better than the umpteen transitional governments that have ruled in the last 15 years?

Not if one thinks that the only appropriate connection between church and state is a Christian connection (and that Christianity can probably be more narrowly defined as some subspecies of fundamental Protestantism that looks a lot like early Calvinism).

[SWJ Blog]

Battling Radical Islamist Propaganda in Somalia

Entry Excerpt:

Battling Radical Islamist Propaganda in Somalia:The Information Intervention Option
by Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob

While the international community continues to dither over Somalia, Islamic fundamentalists have taken over control of the country’s information space and other key strategic assets. This article discusses the precarious media environment in Somalia and revisits discourses on Information Intervention, conceptualised by Jamie Metzl in 1997. It examines the nature of UN’s ‘Information Intervention’ in Somalia and argues that the international community can do more by drawing on available legal instruments to carry out ‘coercive’ information intervention.

Download the Full Article: Battling Radical Islamist Propaganda in Somalia:The Information Intervention Option

Dr Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob is a Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow at the Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, United Kingdom.



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[SWJ Blog]

An Opportunity in Somalia

Entry Excerpt:



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[Chowing]

In recent days Al-Shabaab terrorists have raided, looted, and completely shut down several aid and humanitarian agencies in Southern Somalia. The TGF and drone bombings have ran al-Shabaab out of Mogadishu and the terrorists our now concentrating on causing outside aid to break down in their strongholds in the south of Somalia.

How can the hearts and minds of the Somalians be won away from al-shabaab when giving aid seems less possible by the day?

[Uboat509]

The conventional wisdom is that the US should provide very public humanitarian assistance in the hopes that the populous will appreciate what the US is doing for them. There are certainly times and places for that but this is not one of them. Our insistence on propping up the TFG despite its inability to do much more than govern much more than most of Mogadishu means that the key to success will be contingent on actually maintaining a lower profile. Somalis, particularly in the South where Al-Shabaab is strongest are already suspicious of foreign presence. The TFG remains unpopular in many parts of the country and its continued support by foreign powers, most notably the US and the EU has made many of them even more suspicious of foreign motives and intentions. The 2006-2009 failed attempt by Ethiopia to establish order, viewed by many Somalis as a US intervention by proxy, did little to alleviate that attitude. Al-Shabaab is really not terribly popular with local Somalis either but the TFG is even less so, or at the very least is incapable of doing anything to help Somalis who find themselves at the mercy of Al-Shabaab thugs.

Ideally what the US should do if it really wants to help is to quietly distance itself from the TFG and quietly work through intermediaries to provide support to local institutions and even militias who are opposed to Al-Shabaab. The anti-Al-Shabaab effort must have an entirely Somali. US/Western direct interventions should be limited to very surgical kinetic operations to remove foreign (ie not Somali) fighters who are advising/training/leading Al-Shabaab elements, taking great care to avoid collateral damage. The West, and the US in particular, must also be prepared if the government that emerges out of the inevitable collapse of the TFG is not the one that they would like to see. In all likelihood, Somaliland and and Puntland in the north, which have been self governing and largely stable for quite some time now will formally separate from the South. Any government that emerges from the south will likely have a conservative Islamic face, much like the Islamic Courts which preceded the Ethiopian intervention in 2006. This government will be far from what the US would like to see but the US must remember that the goal is not to create western style democracy but to create a state that is inhospitable (or at least less hospitable) to extremist elements with global aspirations. That is what we should do.

Unfortunately, we will remain wedded to the idea that anything other than some form representative government and the implementation of western style concepts like the primacy of secular law over religious law and gender equality means that we have failed. And so, what we will most likely do is we will continue in our counterproductive support of the abortion that is the TFG, we will continue to refuse to support local entities rather than the TFG so as not to "undermine" the TFG, and will continue to do so very publicly so that Somalis in the south will not soon forget our role in removing a distasteful (by western standards) government that at least functioned and helping to install and then prop up a government that is unpopular and largely impotent.

[Chowing]

The conventional wisdom is that the US should provide very public humanitarian assistance in the hopes that the populous will appreciate what the US is doing for them.

However, in the current situation in Mogadishu and the south is that aid distribution centers have been shut down. So, the conventional wisdom is not in touch with reality on the ground at present.

.. Our insistence on propping up the TFG despite its inability to do much more than govern much more than most of Mogadishu means that the key to success will be contingent on actually maintaining a lower profile.

I agree, the US and Europeans need to stay far far in the background.

Somalis, particularly in the South where Al-Shabaab is strongest are already suspicious of foreign presence.

The drone flying overhead and ocassion dropping a bomb only instills more hatred and suspicion.

Al-Shabaab is really not terribly popular with local Somalis either but the TFG is even less so, or at the very least is incapable of doing anything to help Somalis who find themselves at the mercy of Al-Shabaab thugs.

The US and the Europeans for that matter do a terrible job of researching and understanding the local culture and the attitudes and preferences of the people. Or, it could be worse. It could be they do not even care what the locals think. They have their own agenda. I tend to think it is a little of each.

Ideally what the US should do if it really wants to help is to quietly distance itself from the TFG and quietly work through intermediaries to provide support to local institutions and even militias who are opposed to Al-Shabaab. The anti-Al-Shabaab effort must have an entirely Somali.

There is a lot aid agencies and other NGO's can do if they are given the freedom to do so. What we should be entering into is a new age in which aid agencies can no longer afford to remain neutral. Their countries of origin, supporters and constituents may require them to take sides. Not a good time ahead for such agencies. They often find themselves sitting ducks, and they are beginning to pay for it in Somalia, as well as in the Sahel at the hands of AQIM.

Regional and clan tensions are raising in the East and the Horn of Africa. I wrote about it recently on by blog. www.terrorisminafrica.com

[davidbfpo]

Just watched a distressing half hour documentary on the famine in Somalia and the questions that arise - who is at fault? Provides some of the context for the issues raised here:http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/...473753430.html

As I have posted before the famine is not accepted as genuine by some.

[Stan]

As I have posted before the famine is not accepted as genuine by some.

And I might add, that the distribution of aid is far from fair or controlled. Not too many volunteers willing to go into a war zone to donate rice with a US flag and "hand shake" on the outside

[Chowing]

Seven foreigners including a former US soldier have been arrested in Kenya in the last two weeks over links to Al-Shabaab.

Kenyan soldiers also killed six of the militants in Somalia on Tuesday.

The seven were arrested as they tried to enter Somalia to join the militant group for training.

Other suspects were from other European countries, said police spokesman Eric Kiraithe.

Mr Craig Benedict Baxam, the ex-US soldier was charged in an American court on Monday with attempting to provide material support to a terrorist group, CNN reported.

The TV station said he was arrested by Kenyan authorities on December 23.

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Seven+A...z/-/index.html

Link to photo:http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=Cra...J1Cl5KOo2IveXY

Baxam is not the first American to join, or attempt to join, al-shabaab. There is a long history of former US (an soldiers for other countries) becoming mercenaries in battles around the world. How new is it for former US troops joining jihadist groups?

[AdamG]

Before traveling to Africa, Baxam cashed out his retirement savings and destroyed his personal computer, according to the complaint. He told authorities he found music and pictures in America disrespectful and was "looking for dying with a gun in my hand."

http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/...49234?sac=Home

Sounds like something written by Coppola : Sell the house. Sell the car. Sell the kids. Find someone else. I'm never coming back.

[bourbon]

How new is it for former US troops joining jihadist groups?

Not unheard of. There have been cases before of former US military personnel going on Jihad in Bosnia and Chechnya; probably Afghanistan in the 80’s - 90’s too. There was a Chechen field commander that the Russians killed who they said had served in the USMC, Kadyrov and the FSB made a big deal out of it.

[Chowing]

Navy Seals successfully rescued two hostages (an American and a Danish national) in Somalia in an overnight raid.

http://terrorisminafrica.com/2012/01...om-al-shabaab/

[davidbfpo]

A BBC report and not unexpected:

Islamist militant group al-Shabab, which controls much of Somalia, has released a joint video with al-Qaeda, announcing the two groups have merged...

BBC Somali editor Yusuf Garaad Omar says the merger of al-Shabab and al-Qaeda has the potential to change the dynamics of the conflict in Somalia.

Al-Qaeda needs to project power and influence, particularly given its own operational impotence, Al-Shabab's acceptance under the al-Qaeda umbrella probably came with permission from Zawahiri for the group to launch external operations against the West (said Leah Farrell)

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16979440