Ethiopian troops attacked Somalia's Union of Islamic Courts on four fronts, Ethiopian officials said Sunday. Ethiopian MIG fighter bombers have attacked several Islamic Court held towns in a significant escalation of fighting.
For a fifth day, the heaviest fighting took place outside the southern town of Baidoa, the government's only stronghold, and sources said the Ethiopians were close to taking the nearby town of Beletwayne. Fighting was also reported around the northern town of Galkayo, near the Ethiopian border, along a main supply route to the northern part of the country.
In Mogadishu, Islamic Court leaders, who have received support from Ethiopia's bitter enemy, Eritrea, and other countries, called on foreign fighters to join a holy war against the Ethiopian troops. [...]The Islamic movement has accused the United States of tacitly giving Ethiopia the green light to invade. In a recent interview, Ibrahim Hassan Addou, foreign minister for the Courts, said that even if the movement was harboring terrorists, the United States should pursue them lawfully by presenting evidence, rather than "by threats and intimidation." "If war breaks out, the U.S. is siding with Ethiopia . . . and the consequences of war will be because of Ethiopia and the U.S.," he said.
The scariest part of all this is that Ethiopia is a country dominated by Christian leaders and a Christian army even though Muslims now comprise nearly half the population. The Courts movement has and will continue to use that fact as a tool to recruit young Muslim fighters. Somalia's leaders have called for foreign fighters to join in a jihad against the infidel Ethiopia.
It seems likely that Ethiopia will be unable to impose peace and the war will emerge as another regional quagmire of terrorist-style attacks. Already, car bomb attacks in Baidoa have killed several people. However, if Ethiopia can hit the Islamic Courts hard enough, they may be forced to the negotiating table with the weak internationally recognized government.
Ethiopia claims it was forced into war. Claiming Ethiopia was waging war against Somalia's Islamists to protect his country's sovereignty, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said against Islamic courts terrorists and anti-Ethiopian elements they are supporting, in particular by Ethiopia's foe, Eritrea.
Ethiopian Information Minister Berhan Hailu said the operation targeted several fronts including Dinsoor, Bandiradley and Baladwayne and the town of Buur Hakaba - close to the administration's encircled south-central base Baidoa.
[...]Somalia's ambassador to Ethiopia Abdikarin Farah said government forces had killed 500 Islamist troops, most of them Eritreans, in two days of heavy fighting, but there was no independent confirmation of the death toll. The Islamists say they have killed hundreds of pro-government troops, but aid agencies put the total number of dead at dozens.
Farah said Islamists killed 10 government soldiers and wounded 13, adding that 280 enemy fighters were taken prisoner, some of them from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sudan.
[...]Independent specialist on Somalia, Matt Bryden, told Reuters he did not expect either side to win the war decisively. "The Ethiopians are trying to hit the Islamists hard enough that they will come to the negotiation table," he said. "But they run the risk the war will become a protracted and unwinnable conflict."
Military experts estimate Ethiopia has 15,000-20,000 troops in Somalia, while Eritrea has about 2,000 behind the Islamists.
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