Ethopia Targets Islamists In Somalia
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On Terrorism, The WorldTwo unlikely countries are now locked in a life and death struggle.
According to witnesses, Ethiopian fighter jets bombarded several towns, obliterating an Islamist recruitment center and other targets, while Ethiopian tanks rolled into battle. The attacks set off riots in Mogadishu, Somalia’s battle-scarred seaside capital, and fighting on several fronts in southern Somalia.Ethiopia, which commands the region’s most powerful military, did not disclose how many troops, tanks or planes it had sent into Somalia, but the United Nations has said at least 8,000 Ethiopian soldiers may be in the country. Casualties were reported Sunday, but reliable estimates were impossible to ascertain.
Until now, Ethiopian officials had denied that they had any combat forces inside Somalia, saying instead that their involvement was limited to a few hundred military advisers.
Over the past few months, the Islamist clerics in Somalia have threatened Ethiopia for supporting their rivals, the internationally recognized transitional government.
On Saturday, after several days of heavy internal fighting, Islamist leaders announced that Somalia was now open to Muslim fighters around the world who wanted to wage a holy war against Ethiopia, a country with a long Christian history, even though it is about half Muslim.
“What did you expect us to do?� said Zemedkun Tekle, a spokesman for Ethiopia’s information ministry. “Wait for them to attack our cities?�
Seeing more countries fighting this fight is encouraging. I know it’s selfish, but the more of these we don’t have to fight, the better. We can’t go around doing everything, and it’s good to see Ethiopia stepping up and helping in this long fight.
And, can a regional power do something we weren’t able to do?
In a hint of a possible direction to come, Ethiopia’s prime minister recently told American officials that he could wipe out the Islamists “ in one to two weeks.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Ethiopia.
This entry was posted on Monday, December 25th, 2006 and is filed under The War On Terrorism, The World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 25th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
You are right they should eliminate a militant islamic revolution wich only wants to seize teritory and just playing good oo Power. But in the end after thousands die on both sides somalia and other muslim nations will become under the sharia law unless someone wants to elimanate the whole 2.5 BILLION MUSLIMS around the world, sorry bye bye.
December 25th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
The world communities know the dispute in between Somali and Ethiopia, and it’s a dispute over so many years, both countries fought more than twice, and the world nations know the enmity in between the two countries… As a group we were amazed and frustrated by some of the world nations who are lobbying the presence of Ethiopian troops in Somalia.
The world nations know what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, and yet there is no solution at all, are they trying to flame another deadly fight in the Horn of Africa, today we all know what is happening in East Africa, the floods devastated the whole region or some parts of the region, and the people are suffering lack of food, shelter, and medicine.
To this point the aggression of Ethiopia is widely known by the world, and most of the strongest nations of the world are lobbying to lift the arms embargo from Somalia, and the Somalia people understand that they are flaming the war in East Africa, they are underestimating that Ethiopia is not going win the war, thinking that the Somalis are not ready for a war, it is absolutely false, and Somalis has a history in defeating Ethiopia, and there is no basis for their theory. We all understand that there is a proxy war, but who is going benefit, nobody knows, but the truth is to support Ethiopia, and today the world nations know that Ethiopia occupied some parts of Somalia and we understand that it is an aggression and as nation we are not going accept such a tragic steps towards Somalia.
Hence, therefore, there has been peace in Somalia for the last seven months, and the era of war lords had ended, yet we know that some of them are stationed in Ethiopia seeking help from the Ethiopian regime of Melez. Melez knows the Somali people, but he is rushing to a decision he knows the result. The world knows the problems facing Ethiopia politically, economically, and socially, the country needs solutions for the internal conflict in between Melez and other liberation fronts fighting inside the country.
The reality is explicit, but he is closing his eyes and ears, and his political involvement in Somalia will end the sooner the better, because his underestimation will end in dilemma. Today, we understand that the United States of America is lobbying for the lifting of the Arms Embargo from Somalia, and it is an idea favoring the Melez regime, but we hope that the United States should think about the future of the horn of Africa.
In conclusion, we all see the challenges and opportunities in Somalia, there is a an ongoing meeting in between the Transitional Federal Government and the Islamist courts Union, and it is an internal issue, and there will be a comprehensive understanding the sooner the better, but the solution is not in the hands of Melez regime, and we all know that he was always the creator of the problems in Somalia. The presence of the Ethiopian troops in Somalia is not a solution, as a group, we urge the world nations to pressurize the Ethiopian regime to deploy their troops back to their country. The Council urges Somalis of all political stripes to put aside their differences and address once and for all the relentless Ethiopian menace facing the sovereignty, territorial integrity and the political independence of the Somali Republic. Ethiopia’s supplies of armaments, in stark contravention of the UN arms embargo on Somalia (Resolution 733 of 1992), is for the most part responsible for the ongoing bloodletting in many regions of Somalia including Bay, Mogadishu, Sool and the Jubba Valley. It also keeps creating clone-warlords to topple other warlords who turn out to be disobedient to her grand scheme. This should demonstrate to all that the real object of Ethiopian Somalia is simply to divide and rule.
December 26th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
The unfortunate thing in all this is that Ethiopia is a large part of the problem. As the International Crisis Group has noted, “Ethiopia’s attempts to supplant the earlier Transitional National Government (2000-2003) with one dominated by its allies alienated large sections of the Hawiye clan, leaving the TFG with a support base too narrow to operate in and near Mogadishu.� The Hawiye clan, in turn began to join and support the Islamic Courts to balance Ethiopian interference and sought help from Eritrea, which is Ethiopia’s long time enemy. Hence, the situation that has developed is one that pits two countries (Ethiopia and Eritrea) in a proxy war within Somali territory.
In addition, because the TFG’s support base is too narrow, most Somalians see it as nothing more than another faction within the larger Somalian conflict as opposed to a true government of National Unity. That, and the fact that it is financed and aided heavily by Ethiopia also make it seem as less authentically native (a fact the Islamic Courts have used to discredit it).
If the US were to support Ethiopia as some American officials seem to suggest, we risk loosing yet another battle in the war on terror. Before committing to a strategy it is important to understand the nature of the conflict and the reasons behind it. Hence, in this instance, we could go a long way to prevent or ameliorate the conditions driving the conflict in Somalia by pushing Ethiopia and Eritrea away from their respective proxies in Somalia, while also mediating between the ICU and TFG to ensure that the Hawiye clan has enough representation in the TFG to enable it to survive and come to a negotiated solution with the Islamic Courts.
The conflict in the Horn is not so much a conflict in the War on Terror, but rather a proxy war between two rival countries within a third already destabilized one, which can lead to a wider regional war. If managed improperly it has the potential to become part of the larger war on terror, and will be seen as a defeat for American efforts in the Horn of Africa. Why? Because in supporting the TFG (which has a small base of support internally and is seen as an Ethiopian (i.e Christian) puppet) we risk placing American credibility on the line only to then have the ICU achieve its objective in the long run (perhaps with some foreign jihadist aid).
In the current fighting Ethiopia seems to have the upper hand, however if it decides to occupy parts of Somalia, it is more than likely that the ICU will regain the upper hand. Somalis are extremely nationalistic (as our own intervention there proved) and also view Ethiopia with suspicion having fought them twice before, hence any attempt by Ethiopia to remain in Somalia will likely lead to an insurgency a la Iraq.
January 1st, 2007 at 4:09 am
Good for Ethiopia. One of the most ancient nations, and independant.
Not concerned about offending anyone….maybe this is why they are still independant. Spinless media neglects the heroics of a nation surrounded by envious, tyrannically mad muslims. May God strengthen and increase the efforts against these brainwashed lockstep religious tyrants.(radical muslims)