Troop pull-out leaves government on brink

[Truth2Tell]

Source: Sunday Herald

SOMALIA'S FRAGILE government appears to be on the brink of collapse. Islamist insurgents now controls large parts of southern and central Somalia - and are continuing to launch attacks inside the capital, Mogadishu.

Ethiopia, which launched a US-backed military intervention in Somalia in December 2006 in an effort to drive out an Islamist authority in Mogadishu, is now pulling out its troops.

Diplomats and analysts in neighbouring Nairobi believe the government will fall once Ethiopia completes its withdrawal, and secret plans have been made to evacuate government ministers to neighbouring Kenya.

That may happen sooner rather than later. A shipment of Ethiopian weapons, including tanks, left Mogadishu port last month as part of the withdrawal. Bringing the equipment back to Ethiopia by land would have been impossible - analysts believe Ethiopian troops and their Somali government allies control just three small areas in Mogadishu and a few streets in Baidoa, the seat of parliament. There are now estimated to be just 2500 Ethiopian soldiers left inside Somalia, down from 15,000-18,000 at the height of the war.

Read more: http://www.sundayherald.com/international/shinternational/display.var.2459722.0.troop_pullout_leaves_government_on_brink.php

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Ethiopian Troops pulling out of Somalia is a very major blow to the US Empire.

I have to wonder why this is only being reported thus far in a Scottish paper?

Keep a sharp eye on this situation. It's unlikely the folks at AFRICOM will let this stand for long.

[happyslug]

1. A bad omen sprang to my me on reading this.

Just before the time of Mohammad the Ethiopians invaded Yemen and southern Arabia. They left just before Mohammad, and historians have always speculated what would have happened if the Ethiopians had stayed. Could Mohammad have united the Arabs of Arabia? They were NOT united when Ethiopia invaded, They were NOT united as Ethiopia tried to take and hold Yemen (some of the arabs even backed Ethiopia).

My fear is will bin Lade (Whose family is from Yemen) view this as a sign to get his forces out (I am thinking in terms of Pakistan more then anything else)? Will bin Laden view this retreat like a second withdraw of Ethiopia? Only time will tell.

[Robbien]

3. As long as the Ethiopians are there, the death and destruction continues

Each day that passes one sees reports of another dozen or so Somalian civilians being killed either by government troops (Ethiopia) or by the Islamic Counsel. The country has been in this holding pattern now for two years while the destruction of the country continued.

At least now with the Ethiopians gone, the US/Ethiopian puppet government will be routed out and Somalia can move forward.

Bin Laden is not the only option here.

[Truth2Tell]

5. Indeed. Bin Laden was a ruse

The Islamic Councils were not terrorists. We need to learn to accept the leadership people choose for themselves, even if it's not our ideal.

We have opportunities in North Africa to avoid the early mistakes we made in the Middle East. It's not too late to chart a new course.

I worry that under current leadership we will simply retrench and return to Somalia with guns (and the CIA) blazing.

[Robbien]

6. There are news reports out there that we are bankrolling a Kenyan

force of tens of thousands whose mission is to go to Somalia to keep "peace". Somalia is not happy (well, the people of Somalia aren't, the puppet government probably would be).

Nothing good can come out of this I fear.

[Truth2Tell]

7. Thanks for the tip. I think you nailed it.

We have no plans to let the Somalis determine their own fate.

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2006-08-18-regional-body-announces-somali-peacekeeping-force

Regional body announces Somali peacekeeping force

East African defence chiefs expect to have the vanguard of a peacekeeping force for Somalia ready by the end of next month, officials said on Friday, despite fierce objections from powerful Islamists in the chaotic Horn of Africa nation.

Under revised plans for the mission agreed late on Thursday, the first elements of the nearly 7Â 000-strong regional force are to assemble in north-east Kenya near the Somali border in late September, the officials said.

However, the proposed deployment was immediately rejected by Somalia's newly dominant Islamist movement, whose supreme leader vowed to resist the deployment of any foreign troops on Somali soil.

And it faces numerous other hurdles, not least of which are funding and United Nations Security Council reluctance to ease a 14-year-old arms embargo to assist the peacekeepers in restoring stability.

Meeting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, chiefs of staff and senior military officials from the seven-member Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad) adopted plans for a Somalia force of 6Â 800 made up of eight battalions.

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-09/2007-09-20-voa23.cfm?CFID=52317482&CFTOKEN=28589074

US Backs Arab-African Force for Somalia Peacekeeping

wo senior U.S. officials in East Africa say the situation in Somalia is improving despite continued violence. They have pledged American support for a joint Arab-African peacekeeping force for the shattered country. Nick Wadhams has the story from our Nairobi bureau.

Speaking to reporters at the U.S. Embassy in the Kenyan capital, U.S. Ambassador Michael Rannenberger and the special U.S. envoy for Somalia, John Yates, said American counter-terrorism efforts in the Horn of Africa have "severely disrupted" al-Qaida in the region.

-snip

The reconciliation process has been derided as a failure by opponents of Somalia's transitional government and members of the Islamic Courts Union, which was driven from much of the country by Ethiopian troops early this year.

A group led by former Islamic Courts chief Sheikh Sharif Ahmed has been meeting in the Eritrean capital, Asmara. That group has promised a new war in Somalia if necessary.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/sovereign/failed/2005/0131forgotten.htm

Peacekeepers in Somalia "May Jeopardise Peace"

With the current lawless situation in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, the upcoming African Union (AU) peace-building mission to Somalia could spark another civil war in the country, analysts warn. In Mogadishu, militias are increasingly organising armed resistance to the soon-to-come transitional government and possible AU troops.

According to a new analysis of the situation in Somalia by the Brussels-based think-tank International Crisis Group (ICG), "the decision by African regional organisations to send troops to Somalia risks destabilising Somalia's fragile transitional institutions and jeopardising the peace process."

At an emergency session of the AU's Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa last week, the Horn of Africa inter-governmental organisation IGAD received the green light to send 7,500 troops in response to a request from Somalia's interim President to help him return to the country and disarm its warring factions. However, the Somali transitional government is deeply internally divided over this issue, and the war lord-dominated Somali parliament has not yet approved any foreign military deployment.

Various Somali clan leaders and militia groups have threatened to oppose such an intervention by force

[tclambert]

2. Somalia had a government?

[ohio2007]

4. Ethiopia said they were only going to keep troops there for eight weeks......

[Truth2Tell]

8. That's what they said 2000 years ago... nt

[ohio2007]

11. Thats what they said in December 2007 when first crossing the border

[Supersedeas]

9. can she see Somalia from the big State of Alaska too?

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Somali Islamic group threatens to attack Kenya

An extremist Islamic militia in Somalia has threatened to launch attacks in neighboring Kenya if the Kenyan government trains Somali government troops, a spokesman said.

The U.S. has accused the group, al-Shabab, of harboring the al-Qaida-linked terrorists who allegedly blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

Kenya has offered to train Somali troops. In a telephone interview with local radio stations late Wednesday, Sheik Muktar Robow, an al-Shabab militia spokesman, blamed the Somali armed forces for thousands of deaths.

"We heard that the Kenyan government is willing to train 10,000 men for the TFG (transitional federal government), so if it goes on to do this, we will order all our holy warriors to start the jihadi war inside Kenya," Robow said in the interview, which several radio stations in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, broadcast live.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/16/africa/AF-Somalia-Kenya.php