Somali Islamic leader issues war declaration on Ethiopia

[Jag]

Dec. 21, 2006 12:12 | Updated Dec. 21, 2006 12:17


Somalia is now in "a state of war," the country's Islamic leader said Thursday, despite an earlier pledge to return to peace talks with the government.

As shelling continued near the government's garrison town of Baidoa, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys called for all Somalis to join the fight against neighboring Ethiopia.
"All Somalis should take part in this struggle against Ethiopia," he told The Associated Press. "If you cannot fight you can contribute in other ways to the effort," Aweys said by telephone.

Three days of clashes between Islamic fighters and government forces who are backed by Ethiopian troops have left more than 100 people dead.

Ethiopia denies its forces are involved in the clashes, but says it has deployed several hundred military trainers in support of the transitional government.
On Wednesday, Aweys told an EU envoy that he was willing to return to peace talks with the Somali transitional government. But on Thursday, he said, "the country is in a state of war."

In Ethiopia, the government said in a statement released late Wednesday that the Islamic group was warmongering and not interested in peace. "Ethiopia has exerted efforts as it will do so for the peaceful resolution of the problem in Somalia," the statement said.

In Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, which is controlled by the Islamic group, Muslim leaders said they had killed 70 government soldiers, the majority of them Ethiopians. One was an Ethiopian colonel, senior Islamic leader Sheik Mohamud Ibrahim Suley said. The Islamic group said they suffered seven deaths with 22 injured.

"The war is between Somalia and Ethiopia - so the transitional government has to choose between Somalis and Ethiopia," Suley told reporters.
Somalia's deputy defense minister Salad Ali Jelle told reporters that 71 Islamic fighters had been killed and 221 injured so far during clashes in three locations near military training camps around the government garrison town of Baidoa.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

Jag

[Sean Osborne]

The entire 'Horn of Africa' region is at stands risk of rampant conflict -Islamist inspired conflict.

And it's not just the Islamic Courts of Somalia vs. the remnant interim government of Somalia and Ethiopia. Eritrea also figures prominently as does Sudan.

A regional war in the Horn will invariably involve other regional powers such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Djibouti, etc.

[Sean Osborne]

Ethiopian troops have inflicted a major loss on the Somali Islamic Courts troops beseiging the provincial Somali Government town and capital of Baidoa.

Notice the name of the foreign troops on the side of the Somali Islamists which I mentioned above.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061226/wl_nm/somalia_conflict_meles_dc

Up to 1,000 Islamists dead in Ethiopia

By Tsegaye Tadesse Tue Dec 26, 8:43 AM ET

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Somalia's Islamists are in full retreat after
Ethiopian airstrikes and a ground offensive that have killed up to 1,000
of the religious movement's fighters, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi said on Tuesday.

"A joint Somali government and Ethiopian force has broken the back of
the international terrorist forces... These forces are in full retreat,"
Meles told reporters in , adding that up to 1,000 Islamist
fighters had been killed.

"A few are Somali but the majority are foreigners," he said of the dead.

Addis Ababa has vowed to protect Somalia's weak interim government from rival Islamists based in . A week of artillery and mortar duels between the two sides has spiraled into open war that both sides say has killed hundreds.

Meles said most fighters of the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC)
had fled to their home areas. He said Ethiopian forces were now hunting
down troops from his arch-foe Eritrea, which he accuses of supporting
the Islamists.

"The only forces we are pursuing are Eritreans who are hiding behind the
skirts of Somali women, and terrorist mujahideen," Meles said.

says the SICC has recruited foreign jihadists, and that a
handful of almost 300 prisoners taken after one battle for a central
Somali town held British passports.

Meles said he had sent between 3,000 and 4,000 Ethiopian troops into
, but denied they were occupiers. He said it was a small force,
but carried a lot of firepower.

"Our military is skirting the towns and attacking only military bases,"
he said.

"We have already completed half our mission, and as soon as we finish
the second half, our troops will leave ."

He said he had information 3,000 wounded had been taken to hospital in
the Islamist stronghold . But he said there were few civilian
casualties because most of the fighting had taken place away from
settlements.

And the world mainstream media is where in reporting this major victory against the Islamists?

[Sean Osborne]

A fair SITREP on the war going on is Somalia - until the last couple of sentences which reveal the anti-American bias of the trio of East African-based AP reporters who contributed to this filing.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...d/4428101.html

Ethiopian, Somali troops regain Jowhar


By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN

Associated Press Writer Virginian Pilot

December 27, 2006



MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Attacking at dawn, Ethiopian and Somali government troops on Wednesday drove Islamic fighters out of the last major town on the road to Mogadishu, the Islamist-held capital.

Former warlord Mohammed Dheere, who controlled the town of Jowhar before it was captured by the Council of Islamic Courts in June, led the Somali government troops, said resident Abshir Ali Gabre.

"We will attack Mogadishu tomorrow, from two directions," Dheere told the crowd, although his statement appeared to overstep his authority. Dheere does not speak for the government or the Ethiopians.


Government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari confirmed the capture of Jowhar and said his troops were heading toward Balad, an agricultural village about 18 miles from Mogadishu. Smaller than Jowhar, it is the last town before the capital.

Thousands of Ethiopian and Somali government troops were seen in tanks heading toward Balad, said Nadifo Ali Tifow, a resident in Qalimow, a village 25 miles from Balad.


Fighting could still be heard at a military camp south of Jowhar and in the village of Lego. An Islamic official said his troops were simply entering a new phase in their battle.



"Our snakes of defense were let loose, now they are ready to bite the enemy everywhere in Somalia," said Sheik Mohamoud Ibrahim Suley. He did not elaborate, but some Islamic leaders have threatened a guerrilla war including suicide bombings in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital.

Hundreds of people had fled Jowhar, anticipating major fighting, but others seemed resigned to it after suffering from drought and flooding over the last two years.

"We do not know where to escape, we are already suffering from floods, hunger and disease," Abdale Haji Ali said from Jowhar. "We are awaiting death."



Ethiopia sent fighter jets streaking deep into militia-held areas Sunday to help Somalia's U.N.-recognized government push back the Islamic militias. Ethiopia bombed the country's two main airports and helped government forces capture several villages.



Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Tuesday that Ethiopian forces may soon wrap up their offensive against the Islamic militias that until recent days controlled most of the southern part of the country.

Zenawi said he aims to severely damage the courts' military capabilities and allow both sides to return to peace talks on an even footing. He has said he would not send his troops in Mogadishu, which the Islamic movement has held since June.



A State Department spokesman in Washington signaled support Tuesday for Ethiopian military operations against Somalia, noting that Ethiopia has had "genuine security concerns" stemming from the rise of Islamist forces in its eastern neighbor.



Meanwhile, the chairman of the African Union Commission has called a meeting Wednesday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, of the 53-nation AU, the Arab League, and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a seven-nation East African group, to try to end the fighting and resume dialogue between Somalia's warring parties.



The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday took no immediate action on a draft presidential statement circulated by Qatar calling for a cease-fire and withdrawal of foreign forces, specifying Ethiopian troops.

The United States and several other nations objected to singling out Ethiopia and the call for a truce, saying talks and a political agreement are needed for stability before foreign forces can leave. The council agreed to continue discussions Wednesday.



Somalia has not had an effective government since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, pushing the country into anarchy.



Two years ago, the United Nations helped set up a central government for the arid, impoverished Horn of Africa nation. But until the past week, it had little influence outside of its seat in the city of Baidoa, about 140 northwest of .



The country was largely under the control of warlords until this past summer, when the Islamic militia movement pushed them aside.




One critical issue is whether the central government can win the support of Somalis. Many resent Ethiopias intervention because the countries have fought two wars over their disputed border in the past 45 years.


Experts fear the conflict in Somalia could engulf the region. Islamic courts leaders have repeatedly said they want to incorporate ethnic Somalis living in eastern Ethiopia, northeastern Kenya and Djibouti into a Greater Somalia.

Any effort by the Somali government or Ethiopia to take the capital risks a disaster similar to the U.S. intervention in Somalia in 1992.


That U.N.-sponsored mission ended in 1993, after Somali militiamen shot down a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter. Eighteen American servicemen were killed in the crash and vicious street fighting that preceded and followed, made famous in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down.


Associated Press writers Salad Duhul, Les Neuhaus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Chris Tomlinson in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report.

[Jag]

East Africa: UN Sizes Up New War in Horn of Africa

December 26, 2006
Posted to the web December 27, 2006

Thalif Deen
United Nations

Less than a week before he steps down as UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan has a growing new political and humanitarian crisis on his hands: a war between Ethiopia and Somalia in the volatile Horn of Africa.

If the guns are not silenced by next week, the incoming Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will inherit the new war on Jan. 2, the very first day he assumes duties.

"It may be baptism by fire," says a longtime UN staffer, who predicts that the new war in Africa could take a turn for the worse primarily because Ethiopia is predominantly Christian while Somalia is Muslim.

The New York Times has already hinted that Ethiopia's "Christian-led government" and its military operations inside Somalia have "tacit American support".

Both U.S. support and the Christian-Muslim religious equation could threaten a regionalisation of the conflict.

The Times said the Islamic forces in the capital of Mogadishu have been joined by Muslim mercenaries from Yemen, Egypt, Syria and Libya.

The United States, which is already fighting a losing battle in Iraq and Afghanistan, may find itself indirectly involved in a third battle front, this time in Africa.

The United States has been providing support to the transitional government on the ground that the Islamic force has ties to al Qaeda.

Can be read in full at....http://allafrica.com/stories/200612270217.html

Jag

[Aplomb]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1400655.ece

February 18, 2007
Arab states trained Al-Qaeda men to fight in Somalia

Jon Swain and Brian Johnson-Thomas Johannesburg

MIDDLE EASTERN countries secretly armed and supported suspected Al-Qaeda recruits in the failed state of Somalia in a direct challenge to western interests in east Africa, according to a United Nations report.
Hundreds of Islamist fighters were flown, with Eritrean assistance, from Somalia to Syria and Libya for military training. Others were taken to Lebanon to fight with Hezbollah, the report to the UN security council has revealed.


UN investigators also detailed military aid given to the Islamists by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Arab states friendly to the West. Iran also supplied 125 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, 80 of which arrived by sea in dhows and the rest by air.


A clandestine operation to smuggle the fighters out of Somalia began in July last year.


In an interview, Evgueny Zakharov, the owner of Aerolift, an airline with a fleet of ageing Antonov and Ilyushin transport aircraft, based in Johannesburg but registered in the British Virgin Islands, said: “We transported lots of men in uniform — Arabian men with masks.


“They were disciplined men and although none of them had rank badges there were obviously people in charge. They got on the aircraft as if they had done it many times before.”


Zakharov said his involvement began after he was approached by a General Tambi of the Eritrean People’s Defence Forces. Eritrea, a neighbour of Somalia in the volatile Horn of Africa, was a major supporter of the Islamists.


Tambi offered to buy Zakharov’s Ilyushin 76 transport aircraft carrying the Kazakhstan registration number UN 76496 for $1.5m (£770,000), even though the normal price for an aircraft of that vintage and condition is just $1m.


Zakharov went ahead despite the unusual contract conditions that stipulated secrecy. He insisted the contract should specify that the new owners were not to use the aircraft to make arms flights.


However, he said last week that the Ilyushin made three sanctions-busting arms flights to Somalia from the Eritrean port of Massawa, bringing out the masked men on the return legs. “I do not know who they were but you can draw your own conclusions,” he said.


Zakharov’s revelations came as western security services continued their investigation into foreigners suspected of fighting on behalf of Islamic forces in Somalia and of joining Al-Qaeda last year. Among them are British, American and French Muslims.


Significant numbers of foreigners went to Somalia, western intelligence officials have found, after the radical Islamic Courts Union (ICU) movement seized power from a weak UNbacked government, established links with Al-Qaeda and allowed Somalia to be used as an Al-Qaeda terrorist training ground like Afghanistan under Taliban rule.


In December, invading Ethiopian troops took the capital Mogadishu from the ICU and restored the internationally recognised government, routing the

Islamists and scattering the foreigners and Al-Qaeda fighters.


But violence continues to plague the weak and fractured country and there are fears of an Islamist resurgence unless African Union peacekeepers are rapidly deployed.


Last week four British Muslims who had been in Somalia under the radical militia and then crossed the border into Kenya were briefly held under the Terrorism Act on their return to Britain.


An American who was also arrested in Kenya and then deported was charged in Texas with teaming up with Al-Qaeda. He told FBI officers who interrogated him that he had spent time with an Al-Qaeda bomb maker in Somalia being trained in assembly techniques.


The UN report also described Iranian attempts to obtain Somali uranium. Somalia is reported to have 6,600 tons of recoverable uranium but the mines have never been exploited because of poor security.


In addition, Libya provided $1m to finance future training missions and pay salaries. Surface-to-air missiles supplied by Iran are of the type Al-Qaeda used to try to bring down an Israeli charter flight over Kenya in 2002. The missiles are still at large.


Zakharov believes that one of the reasons the Eritreans wanted to use the Ilyushin in the clandestine operations was because the freighter’s registration began with the letters UN and therefore might have been mistaken for a United Nations aircraft.


When Zakharov discovered the Eritreans’ real use of the plane was for arms shipments and for flying the masked men from Somalia, he cancelled the contract. Zakharov said he first grew suspicious when he found that the seven-man crew were each being paid £2,500 bonuses for every flight.


Contacted last week, Tambi denied all knowledge of the deal. However, The Sunday Times has a copy of the contract signed in Moscow and Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, between Aerolift and Eriko Enterprise of Asmara on July 21.


The first sanctions-busting arms flight landed at Mogadishu on July 26 and was followed by three arms shipments — a total of some 140 tons — over the next three days.

[Sean Osborne]

Aplomb,

I'm glad you posted this report above. Than you. You beat me to it, for which I am grateful. This report validates the raw intel I was posting back in late December, particularly with respect to the role of Eritrea. The role of Sudan will be revealed at some point.

It was the direct intervention of the Ethiopian Army (trained in Ethiopia by "The Old Guard", 3rd Inf. Reg. of the US Army) and US special forces operators on the ground in Somalia targeting the Islamists for US airstrikes which stopped the Islamists cold.

[Aplomb]

You're welcome, Sean. Here's what I'd really like to see you comment on, and in depth if you wouldn't mind...
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...366677,00.html

Terror expert doubts UN report
UN claim that Egyptian government trained terrorists in Somalia doesn't add up, Boaz Ganor says Yaakov Lappin

Published:

02.18.07, 20:27 / Israel News

A UN report claiming that Arab countries trained al-Qaeda recruits in Somalia - and sent some of them to Lebanon to fight alongside Hizbullah - is probably false, a leading Israeli terrorism expert told Ynetnews.
According to an article which appeared in the Sunday Times , a UN report said "hundreds of Islamist fighters were flown, with Eritrean assistance, from Somalia to Syria and Libya for military training. Others were taken to Lebanon to fight with Hizbullah, the report to the UN security council has revealed."
The Sunday Times added that "UN investigators also detailed military aid given to the Islamists by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Arab states friendly to the West."
But the UN's report is most likely false, Dr. Boaz Ganor, founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), told Ynetnews. "This does not correspond to the information I have," he said.
"In terms of governments, I don't think the Egyptian government would be willing to train al-Qaeda elements. I don't think even Libya, mentioned by the report, would do it. It doesn't add up," he added. Ganor also said he didn't see an indication that Somali-trained jihadists were being sent to Lebanon.
Wealthy individuals from Egypt or other Middle Eastern states may have provided support for the al-Qaeda training, "but the support wasn't institutionalized," Ganor said.
He added that the inaccurate information contained in the report could be the result of the investigation techniques used by UN committees, which "don't use their own intelligence."
"They either use open sources, or other sources," Ganor explained. "Good Investigators know how to distinguish between real and false intelligence. When you base your intelligence on open sources, you have to take into account that you will be exposed to false sources," he said, citing examples such as internet forums as examples of unsubstantiated information which should be viewed critically.
'Al-Qaeda in Lebanon needs monitoring'
Irrespective of the UN's report, news of al-Qaeda elements streaming into Lebanon needed to be closely monitored, Ganor said. He cited a Katyusha rocket attack on Israel in December 2005 as plausibly being the work of al-Qaeda.

"Just as you see Hizbullah members crossing the border into Syria to support the Iraqi insurgency, the same route is open in both directions," Ganor said.

"The multi-national force in Lebanon is a very attractive target for the global jihad movement," he said, adding: "Israel is always an attractive target for them, but the UN force is more immediate."
Ganor said Shiite Hizbullah would probably view the entry of Sunni al-Qaeda cells into Lebanon as an unwelcome development. "I don't think its in Hizbullah's interest to see the global jihad movement move into Lebanon," he said.

[Sean Osborne]

Well, I agree with the specifics cited by Dr. Ganor on the U.N. allegations of jihadi training by the Government of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He is correct, those specific allegations are most certainly false; there are no institutional connections or stewardship, but certain individuals may have facillitated them. On Libya, I don't know, but it is possible that certain indivudals were involved.

On Sunni AQ in Lebanon coming from Somalia and fighting alongside Shi'te Hezbollah -- no chance in my opinion. They're at each others throats elsewhere. And in Gaza the same thing is true. The Sunni jihadi hates the Shi'a jihadi as much as he hates the "infidel crusaders", and vice versa.

However, both Sunni and Shi'a jihadi's will take money or materiel from Iran. It is within the Iranian government interest to provide such support; it serves their goals of creating regional and eventually global chaos - so they provide such support.