The great game of hunting pirates

Asia Times Online

Sea piracy off the coast of Somalia is looming large on the radar of world opinion. The recent hijacking of the oil tanker Sirius Star - a supertanker big enough to hold a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily production (2 million barrels) - has dramatically highlighted the expanding dimensions of the problem. The barely functioning government of Somalia is unable to curb the pirates who sail from its ports and seize cargo ships that ply past.
The pirates on board the Sirius Star have issued a US$25 million ransom demand, and warned of "disastrous" consequences if the money is not paid.
[..]Therefore, there is no question that the problem of piracy is also to be addressed ashore in Somalia. But, problems often enough, lend themselves to solution if only soldiers and geostrategists would step aside for a while. That is, at least, the expert opinion of Katie Stuhldreher. Writing in the Christian Science Monitor recently, she put forth a three-way approach to the Somalia problem. One, the international community should appreciate that the piracy in Somalia has its origin among disgruntled fishermen who had to compete with illegal poaching by foreign commercial vessels in its tuna-rich coastal waters.
This unequal fight created a local impoverished population. Resentment was also caused among the coastal population over the shameless dumping of wastes in Somali waters by foreign ships. The disgruntled local fishermen, who lost out, soon organized to attack foreign fishing vessels and demand compensation. Their campaign succeeded and prompted many young men to "hang up their fishing nets in favor of AK-47s".
Stuhldreher suggested, "Making the coastal areas lucrative for local fishermen again could encourage pirates to return to legitimate livelihoods." Therefore, she wrote, "A fishery protection force will eliminate the pirates' source of legitimacy." This could be done under the auspices of the UN or African Union or a "coalition of the willing".
Most important, "An international force sent to protect local industry will achieve the same goal as warships but in a more acceptable way. The principal reason piracy thrives along Somalia's coast is that there is no coastal authority to protect these waters. Armed foreign ships will still serve to fill that vacuum and deter attacks, but with the explicit mission of serving Somalia's people - the very people who have chalked up enough reasons to dislike foreign military interventions and are likely to view the presence of warships as intimidation."
But, will there be any takers for "nation-building" in Africa among the US, NATO and European member countries, Russia or India? Highly unlikely. Ideally, the international community should also commence a reconciliation process involving the residual elements of the ICU. In retrospect, like in Afghanistan in the case with the Taliban, a proper understanding of Islamism would help appreciate the worth of the ICU in stabilizing Somalia.
On the contrary, under the broad rubric of the fight against sea piracy, what we are witnessing is an entirely different template of maritime activity by the interventionist powers. The US has established a separate Africa Command in the Pentagon. NATO and the EU have stepped out of the European theater and entered the Indian Ocean area. Russia is seeking a reopening of its Soviet-era naval base in Aden. India has sought and obtained berthing facilities for its warships in Oman, which is an unprecedented move to establish a permanent naval presence in the Persian Gulf. The Indian Ocean is becoming a new theater in the Great Game. It seems a matter of time before China appears.
China of course is not a newcomer to the Indian Ocean. In 1405, during the reign of Emperor Yung-lo of the Ming Dynasty, a celebrated Chinese naval commander Ching-Ho visited Ceylon (presently known as Sri Lanka) bearing incense to offer at the renowned shrine of the Buddha in the hill town of Kandy. But he was waylaid by Sinhalese King Wijayo Bahu VI, and he escaped to his ships. To seek revenge, China dispatched Ching-Ho a few years later. He captured the Sinhalese king and his family and took them away as prisoners. But on seeing the prisoners, the Chinese emperor out of compassion ordered them to be sent back on the condition that the "wisest of the family should be chosen king". The new king, Sri Prakrama Bahu, was given a seal of investiture and made a vassal of the Chinese emperor. That was how Ceylon remained until 1448, paying an annual tribute to China.
Admiral Mehta has a worthy example in front of him, provided he can coax his reluctant country to flex its muscles in Africa for the first time in its ancient history. His best argument would be that unless he took an early lead, Ching-Ho might reappear in the Indian Ocean. But then there is an inherent risk insofar as the pirates who disappeared into the mist on Tuesday evening might also return looking for the INS Tabar.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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Dubya's Somalia Devolves

Dubya's foreign policy has been a disaster. Somali is a good example. A Muslim fundamentalist regime was the only likely successful government to stabilize Somalia. Because there were a few Al Qaeda sympathizers in their ranks, then they had to be all bad. The truth is there are no good guys left in Somalia. The only group with any hope of leading must engender the kind of loyalty that comes automatically for many Islamists.
Constructive engagement has been a tried and true diplomatic way to influence a government toward mutually favorable policies. It's time to make constructive engagement as the center piece of American foreign policy. Dubya, we can't just kill everyone we disagree with, duh!
The Daily Star

Repeated regional and internecine violence, which has now spanned 16 years and been worsened by nearly a year of bloody insurgency, has left Mogadishu in ruins, with most basic services completely wiped out.


The remaining residents in Mogadishu, many were driven out by the heavy fighting last month, eek out a living, making do with nearly nothing. Despite efforts by the government to make the city more livable, by painting buildings - those that have survived years of shelling - and clearing and cleaning certain areas, garbage heaps make up much of city's features, and water and electricity remain a luxury.


[..]The fighting has killed hundreds of people this year and sparked a dire humanitarian crisis described by the United Nations as Africa's worst. Nearly 200,000 people fled the war-wracked capital during the latest clashed in November, and at least 600,000 others have been displaced from Mogadishu since February. The latest clashes on Sunday claimed the life of a civilian and wounded three others.

The outcome was predictable from the begining. Ethiopia's invasion was doom from the start. Dubya's financing of it just filtered into the wrong pockets as usual.
PINR

In PINR's judgment, the power struggle within the T.F.G. has ended with its devolution into factionalism and a government divided between Yusuf -- an irreparably failed boss -- and Hussein -- an appeaser without a power base; both are weak and appear to have no possibility of providing national leadership. Yusuf is no longer the protagonist and Hussein is incapable of replacing him; the last piece of Somalia's devolution is in place.


As the T.F.G. collapsed, the patterns of devolution described by PINR in its reports throughout 2007 persisted and deepened. The insurgency against the Ethiopian occupiers and allied T.F.G. forces continues despite an Ethiopian attempt to mount a brutal crackdown and has spread beyond Mogadishu to other regions. The political opposition to the T.F.G. remains intransigent in its demand that Ethiopian forces withdraw from Somalia before it will negotiate on power-sharing. Tensions remain high between Somaliland and Puntland over their conflicting territorial claims. Some regions in Somalia have competing governments, extortionate roadblocks have proliferated, inter-clan conflicts over water and pasture persist, piracy and crime have risen, and there is a humanitarian crisis brought about by the Ethiopian crackdown, which created hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons. Independent media are being suppressed. The donor powers continue to call for broad-based power-sharing in the T.F.G. and for more contributions to the weak African Union peacekeeping force in Mogadishu, to no avail and with no relevance to the actual situation. PINR sees no need to document the above conditions in detail, since they simply prolong a familiar pattern.


With Somalia devolved, the ball is in the court of the external actors, who no longer form a single team. Desperate to pull out, Addis Ababa lost an ally when it forced Gedi out and received in return a "neutral" anxious to please the donor powers. Look for Addis Ababa to be forced to lower its profile as a result of its weakened position. The donor powers are caught between persisting in supporting the T.F.G., which has lost every shred of its unity; devising a new strategy; or pulling back.


A new strategy, the outlines of which have been floated by some strategists in the U.S. military, would be to cantonize Somalia in order to isolate and encircle its most unstable regions; that would involve as its central feature diplomatic recognition of Somaliland and an abandonment of the T.F.G. and of any possibility of a Somali state. Were a cantonization strategy to be pursued, its success would depend on substantial reconstruction aid for the most stable areas, which, in PINR's judgment, would be unlikely to be forthcoming.


Cantonization is simply a return to pre-Courts Somalia, as are continued support for a collapsed T.F.G. and pulling back. There is no present actionable strategy that does not lead back to devolution.

Somalia Collapsing, Regional Conflict May Result

Thanks to the debacle in Iraq, the US and EU are distracted from the events in Africa. Neglect has now evolved into funding proxy battles, fueling sectarian conflict all over the Horn of Africa. Where have we heard that before? The Bush Administration may succeed in destabilizing a second highly populated region where Islamic fundamentalism is pandemic and Al Qaeda has representatives and simpathizers everywhere.
One can't win an insurgency without the support of the people. TGF, the western recognized government of Somalia has no support or military capability. Ethiopia has it's own problems that are threatening to get worse.
PINR

Having made taking effective control over Mogadishu the test of its ability to exert authority over Somalia, the T.F.G. was constrained by the pressure of Western donor powers to make good on its project and to secure the city in advance of a planned National Reconciliation Conference (N.R.C.) aimed at reaching a political resolution to the country's conflicts.


[..]The Ethiopian-T.F.G. offensive, which included artillery shelling of and tank incursions into the districts in the north and south of Mogadishu where the insurgency was concentrated, broke the tense stasis between the opposing sides that PINR had noted in its April 12 report on Somalia.


[..]The operations to crush the insurgency, which began on April 18 and concluded on April 26, appear to have succeeded, at least temporarily, with a cessation of violence and T.F.G. forces in the streets securing key roads and positions. On May 2, AMISOM peacekeepers were patrolling the city for the first time since their arrival. The insurgents, however, have not surrendered, but have drawn back and are reported to be regrouping, promising suicide bombings, targeted assassinations, kidnappings and attacks on hotels housing T.F.G. officials.


According to the calculations of the United Nations, local human rights groups and the Hawiye clan, the offensive resulted in at least 1,000 deaths and drove the total of internally displaced persons from Mogadishu to 400,000. Journalists reported extensive destruction of buildings in the city, hospitals were stretched beyond their limits to care for the wounded, bodies rotted in the streets, aid deliveries to refugees were blocked by the T.F.G. and people fell victim to cholera-like diseases.


[..]As the T.F.G. and Ethiopia concentrated their attention on Mogadishu, instability surfaced elsewhere in Somalia. The T.F.G. lost control of the key southern port city of Kismayo in a struggle between two sub-clans of the Darod clan family, armed conflict broke out in the north between forces of the sub-states of Puntland and Somaliland, a crime wave continued in the unpoliced Lower and Middle Shabelle regions, and there was unrest in the transitional capital Baidoa in the south-central Bay region, leading to the imposition of a curfew. The conflict spread to Ethiopia on April 24, when the Ogaden National Liberation Front (O.N.L.F.) attacked a Chinese oil exploration site in the country's Somali Regional State, leaving nine Chinese workers and 65 Ethiopian workers and guards dead.


Although the T.F.G. and Ethiopia have expressed confidence that they have broken the insurgency and are on the way to stabilizing Somalia, the situation on the ground presents a less promising picture. It is far from clear that the insurgency has been neutralized, instability is increasing outside Mogadishu, and low-level conflicts beyond southern and central Somalia are intensifying. There is a genuine possibility that a regional conflict will erupt.


[..]The Ethiopian-T.F.G. offensive in Mogadishu has broken the stasis, but has not stabilized Somalia and the Horn of Africa. Divisions and tensions are surfacing and deepening within and between actors at all levels, making further conflict and fragmentation likely. The actors do not appear to have the political will to surmount their differences.


International and regional paralysis is partly due to the support of the T.F.G. by external actors and partly to the fact that Somalia is lower on the agenda of the Western powers than other issues. By leaving Somalia to collapse, however, Western powers are inviting its instability to spread beyond its borders. Washington, in particular, has staked its wager on Addis Ababa, which might turn out to be a "bad choice of allies."


With splits running from the intra-clan to the inter-state levels, the conjuncture of powers and interests enveloping Somalia is out of any single actor's or group of actors' control. The sense of crisis is not delusory.

Ethiopia 'expands Somali mission' - EU Investigating Alleged War Crimes

Al Jazeera is reporting a new offensive in Somalia accompanied by a new incursion of Ethiopian troops. Local residents have reported hundreds of Ethiopian soldiers moving into Mogadishu via trucks and air transport. Ethiopia is still reporting they are withdrawing from Somalia.
However there is clearly an offensive going on, allegedly prior to a "National Reconciliation" conference scheduled to begin on April 16th. Perhaps most significantly, the US new allies are being accused of war crimes.

A senior European Union security official has warned the head of the EU delegation for Somalia and Kenya that military forces may have committed war crimes in Somalia. The official warned that donor countries could be considered complicit in any possible crimes if they do nothing to stop them. The warning was made in an urgent memo to Eric van der Linden, the EU ambassador based in Nairobi, Kenya. The author, whose name was blanked out on the copy obtained by The Associated Press, went on to detail the exact statutes that they believed may have been violated.


The official's email said: "I need to advise you that there are strong grounds to believe that the Ethiopian government and the transitional federal government of Somalia and the African Union (peacekeeping) Force Commander, possibly also including the African Union Head of Mission and other African Union officials have through commission or omission violated the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Apparently whole neighorhoods have been bombed to rubble by a joint Somali-Ethiopian offensive. Alleged targetting of civilians with indiscriminate fire from rockets, tanks and artillery from March 29-April 1 have reportedly killed at least 400 people and wounded about 1,000.
The Bush Administration has a consistent way of choosing allies. The more brutal and outrageous the better. As long as the victims are Muslims, it's ok.

Somalia Returns To Chaos

The US backed Ethiopian incursion into Somalia has bogged down into an urban street fight. Civilians are again caught in the crossfire, recruiting more for the ICC side of the conflict.
This little adventure is symptomatic of the Bush Administration weak foreign policy. If you don't like a someone vying for power, create the opposition. If that doesn't work, shoot him.
Al Qaeda is now recruiting for this war as well. The Somali Government claimed that al-Qaeda had named an Islamist commander, Aden Hashi Ayro, as its leader in Mogadishu.
Al Jazeera

On Thursday, Ethiopian troops backed by tanks and helicopters launched the assault to crush armed groups opposing Somalia's weak interim government in Mogadishu.


The armed groups, made up of the remnants of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) movement that was pushed out of the city last year as well as a number of clan militias fighting alongside them, have fired mortars from inside residential areas.


Ethiopian troops have used heavy artillery to shell the fighters' positions inside those areas. However, civilians caught in the crossfire have been the main victims. Hospitals have been overwhelmed, but most victims have been unable to seek any kind of help because of the ongoing clashes. Doctors were also trapped in their homes by the violence and thousands of people have fled Mogadishu in recent days. Corpses remain on the streets as ongoing fighting and mortar fire made it difficult to retrieve bodies or tally the dead.


An AFP news agency correspondent on Sunday said he saw the bodies of at least six civilians lying in the street. Residents said hundreds were believed to have been killed across the city of one million people.

New York Times

The chaos in Somalia took an ugly turn on Wednesday when full-scale fighting broke out in Mogadishu and furious crowds mutilated the bodies of government soldiers, chanting, “We will burn you alive!”


The scene was reminiscent of 1993, when Somalis turned on American peacekeepers and dragged their bodies through the streets. Those images and the loss of 18 American soldiers in a single battle, the infamous “Black Hawk Down” episode, led to a swift American withdrawal.


This time the targets were Ethiopian troops and the soldiers of Somalia’s transitional government, both reviled by many people in Mogadishu, Somalia’s chaotic capital. Residents are now beginning to fear that this transitional government is headed in the same direction as the 13 transitional governments that came before it — into a vortex of clan violence and anarchy that has made Somalia an icon of a failed state.


The recent injection of a small force of African Union peacekeepers does not seem to have made a difference.


At dawn on Wednesday, Ethiopian and government soldiers stormed into a neighborhood in southern Mogadishu to disarm gunmen there. Instead, witnesses said, they were greeted by dozens of masked insurgents who blasted them with rocket-propelled grenades.


More than 15 people were killed, including several government soldiers and possibly two Ethiopians.


The neighborhood is home to several clans that feel alienated by the transitional government and was a stronghold of the Islamist movement that took over the city and much of south-central Somalia last year, before being defeated by Ethiopian and government soldiers in December.

TimesOnline

Al-Qaeda has named a militant Islamist commander - trained in Afghanistan and known for his ruthlessness - as its key representative in Mogadishu, as clashes between government troops and insurgents broke out in the Somali capital for the second day.


In this morning’s exchanges, which took place in both northern and southern parts of the city, insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and heavy machine-guns as government troops responded with a barrage of artillery and machine-gun fire, according to witnesses.
No casualties were yet reported, but terrified residents - unwittingly caught up in the exchanges - rushed to make their way out of Mogadishu amid fears that the latest bloodshed would spread.


Today’s events came a day after fierce fighting between government forces and insurgents killed at least 14 people, including soldiers whose bodies were dragged though the streets and set on fire.


The violence – some of the worst in the Somali capital since last year’s ousting of Islamists – led Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi to urge civilians to leave areas in southern Mogadishu “for security reasons”.

Al-Qaida No. 2 Urges Somalia's Islamists to Fight 'Crusaders'

Al Qaeda has weighed in on Somalia. Ayman al-Zawahri rallies all able Muslim to come to the aid the Jihad in Somalia.
Canada.com

"I speak to you today as the crusader Ethiopian invasion forces violate the soil of the beloved Muslim Somalia," Ayman al-Zawahri said in the audiotape. The Egyptain-born al-Zawahri also urged Islamist militia to remain fighting until Ethiopian forces are defeated.


"I call upon the Muslim nation in Somalia to remain in the new battlefield that is one of the crusader battlefields that are being launched by America and its allies and the United Nations against Islam and Muslims," al-Zawahri said. "Launch ambushes, land mines, raids and suicidal combats until you consume them as the lions and eat their prey," al-Zawahri added.


[...]"My brother Muslims in Somalia, don't be traumatized by America's force because you have defeated it previously with the support of Allah, and it is weaker today than before," al-Zawahri said in the audiotape. Al-Qaida's No. 2 also urged Muslims in other Mideast and African countries to support Somalia's Islamists with fighters, money and expertise.

More detail from Centcom.mil.

I appeal to the Muslims everywhere to rush to support their brother mujahidin who are being encroached upon and are being fought by America and its slaves for they chose the law of Islam instead of the law of looting, plundering, theft, bribery, corruption, and treachery.


God says: And they ill-treated them for no other reason than that they believed in Allah, Exalted in Power, Worthy of all Praise! Him to Whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth! And Allah is Witness to all things.


I urge them not to listen to any defeatist calls that would prevent them from taking part in supporting their brothers who are being attacked. I call on my brothers, the young men of the Islamic groups, to keep in mind that they only joined these groups so that such groups could help them obey God. If such groups prevent you from so doing, you should destroy these caskets in which you are being mummified alive. You should get out of these graves in which these groups intend to bury you alive.


O Muslims in Somalia, I bring you good tidings: America and its slaves will be defeated with the help of God in Somalia as God defeated them in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, you should be patient and steadfast.

Somalia's Islamists have heard Ayman al-Zawahri call for arms. From Houston Chronicle.

Islamic fighters hiding in Mogadishu since their movement's main force was driven from the Somali capital say they will heed al-Qaida's call for guerrilla attacks and suicide bombings against Ethiopian troops whose intervention was key to the Islamists' defeat. "I am committed to die for the sake of my religion and the al-Qaida deputy's speech only encourages me to go ahead with my holy war," 18-year-old Sahal Abdi told The Associated Press, referring to an audio message posted on the Internet on Friday.

Remember all the warnings Bush heard about invading Iraq starting a conflagration of Jihad?

Somali Islamic Fighters Flee Toward Kenya

Destined to attempt to set up guerrilla warfare base in Kenya with plenty of simpathetic refugees, the Somali Islamists flee towards Kenya. Kenya itself has a large Muslim population. It cannot afford to respond callously. In fact, Kenya has indicated they will support moderate Islamic Courts leaders to participate in Somali's new government.
Prime Minister Gedi of the transitional Somali government has been consolidating power by driving out moderates. It's not clear just how compromise will be found. Gedi's claim, ""The warlord era in Somalia is now over" seems premature at best.
washingtonpost.com

Ethiopian forces backing Somalia's weak transitional government have taken over Kismaayo, the last stronghold of the country's Islamic movement, and on Monday were chasing the remnants of the Islamic militia along the Indian Ocean coast toward the Kenyan border about 100 miles to the south.


In the final stage of a dramatic power shift in the fragile Horn of Africa nation, the Islamic fighters abandoned their heaviest weapons early Monday morning and took off for villages in the forest, with Ethiopian and government troops in hot pursuit of key leaders, including three suspects in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.


[..]With the most hard-core militiamen headed their way, Kenyan authorities on Monday tightened security along their border with Somalia, which extends for more than 420 miles. Many of the large number of Somali refugees in Kenya may be sympathetic to the Islamic leaders, and analysts say it would be easy for the fighters to melt into the local population.


Kenyan and Somali government officials have said that if they capture the three embassy bombing suspects, they will hand them over to the U.S. government. Meanwhile, some analysts speculated that the Kenyan government, which has pushed the Somali transitional government to include the more moderate leaders of the Islamic Courts movement, might allow those leaders to take refuge in Kenya.

Pundits Say Islamic Courts Are Effectively Marginalized

They say the Islamic Courts over played their hand after international moves to shore up the recognized government radicalized the leadership and induced them to move against Ethiopian troops in central Somalia.
Meanwhile, the Telegraph reports Islamists digging in near the southern town of Jilib where fleeing residents reported heavy artillery and gunfire.

Officials from Somalia's weak transitional government, which now holds sway over Mogadishu, said they would leave open the offer of peace talks with the ICU providing that they surrendered. "We are contacting them for dialogue. We have repeatedly asked them to come to Mogadishu to talk," Mr Gedi told reporters, adding that the foreign fighters now constituted 65 per cent of the Islamist force.

PINR's latest analysis of the situation in Somalia predicts the Islamic Courts may well mount a guerrilla war in the south, but they will be one of many forces vying for control of Somalia. Moderates who supported the Islamic Courts will no longer support the movement for now having no desire for guerrilla war. PINR predicts that Somalia's recognized government is no stronger than it was. Ethiopia is predicted to be leaving soon with the result of re-emergence of clan militias fragmenting political power and a return to status of a failed state.

Prime Minister Gedi has eliminated his major rival Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, who had attempted to broker a reconciliation agreement between the T.F.G. and I.C.C. Nonetheless, the rise of Gedi to a central position for the moment does not betoken the emergence of a strong central government in Somalia. The Ethiopians will withdraw and the T.F.G. will not have the power to prevent political fragmentation.


Addis Ababa has accomplished its own mission in Somalia, which was to eliminate the threat of an Islamic state on its eastern border, and is content to leave the country in a condition of political weakness. Having leagued with the warlords and Puntland militias, as well as the T.F.G., in its campaign against the I.C.C., and needing to mend its relations with Somaliland, which is resistant to unification with the T.F.G. and has serious border disputes with Puntland, Addis Ababa is unlikely to give whole-hearted support to Gedi. Since Somalia launched an unsuccessful irredentist war against Ethiopia in 1977 to gain control of the latter's ethnic-Somali Ogaden region, Addis Ababa has striven to keep Somalia fragmented and to play factions off against one another. Addis Ababa has not changed that strategy and should not be considered the T.F.G.'s reliable patron.


Understanding the I.C.C.'s aborted revolution is facilitated by the trenchant analysis of Somali intellectual Dr. Abdishakur Jowhar in his article, "A War of Miscalculation," published on the website Hiiraan Online. Commenting on the I.C.C.'s declaration of jihad against Ethiopia and its aggressive moves in mid-December to challenge Ethiopian forces based around the T.F.G.'s provisional capital Baidoa in the south-central Bay region, Jowhar writes: "They threatened Ethiopia and stirred the wasp's nest, but they have not bothered to prepare themselves with protective clothing. They had the guts, the belief, the belligerence but not the arms, the organization or the depth of pocket necessary for waging war (jihad) against Ethiopia. They believed their own rhetoric of god being on their side, of representing all Somalis, of having already taken over and centralized the whole power of the nation in their hands."


As Jowhar sees it, the I.C.C.'s leadership got carried away with itself and succumbed to a triumphalist illusion that led them to throw "young bodies armed with weapons not much better than spears and a prayer against the well oiled fully equipped Ethiopian meat grinder." As do many Somali intellectuals, Jowhar epitomizes his analysis in a Somali proverb: "The tree lamented that the axe with wooden handle would not have been able to cut it down if part of it was not in the axe."


[...]Three possible scenarios present themselves for the new chapter in Somalia's political history. The most unlikely is that the T.F.G. will unify Somalia south of Puntland in an effective central government; its clan-based constitution is an inherent weakness, and the many sub-clans are in a mode of self-protection. More likely is a return to the pre-I.C.C. period of extreme decentralization, warlordism and state failure, either with or without an Islamist insurgency -- the latter being the more probable outcome.


External actors will revert to their previous positions, with regional states playing off Somali factions against one another to their own perceived advantage and Western powers drawing back from the scene, unless an Islamist insurgency becomes a base for international Islamic revolutionaries. Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, has said that massive humanitarian, reconstruction and development aid from Western powers is required for Somalia's stabilization, but that is unlikely to come in sufficient quantities.

Islamic Courts Make a Stand in South Somalia

The New York Times continues its cheerleading for the Ethiopians describing their "heroic" rescue of the UN supported government of Somalia. While this move may well temporarily improve the situation of the government, unless the moderate clerics with the Islamic Courts can be separated from the Al Qaeda allies, there will be no real progress, just a long grueling guerrilla war along the Kenyan border further destabilizing both countries.

A phalanx of Ethiopian tanks and armored personnel carriers chugged toward the last city occupied by Somalia’s diminished Islamist movement, witnesses said today, setting the stage for one final major battle. According to residents along Somalia’s coast, the Ethiopian troops, along with soldiers from Somalia’s transitional government, were preparing to seize Kismayo, a port city near the Kenyan border where the Islamist leaders have holed up.


Sheilk Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a high-ranking cleric, vowed not to go down without a fight. "I want to tell you that the Islamic courts are still alive and ready to fight against the enemy of Allah," Mr. Ahmed told residents of Kismayo in a speech today. "We left Mogadishu in order to prevent bloodshed in the capital, but that does not mean we lost the holy war against our enemy.” Mr. Ahmed called on Somalis to begin an anti-Ethiopian insurgency, and already several masked gunmen have surfaced on Mogadishu’s streets.


Diplomats in Kenya, though, said that they were talking to moderate representatives of the Islamic movement today, trying to persuade them to back down.


In Mogadishu, the presence of Ethiopian troops continued to spark violence, with supporters of the Ethiopians battling street by street against the remaining Islamist partisans. Gunshots rang out, men and women battled with sticks and rocks and the thick black smoke of burning barricades lifted into the air.

A Viable Government in Somalia?

Could it be that the Islamists in Somalia were a paper tiger? The New York Times would have us believe that. They also talk about thousands of Somali government troops? I suspect it's the government of Somalia that is the paper tiger and this is just another chapter in the chaos that is Somalia the failed state.

In a matter of five days, the internationally recognized government, a fledging authority that had been so weak it was marooned in a provincial market town, captured the formidable capital and most of Somalia — with more than a little help from Ethiopia.


The Islamists, whom many Western nations had considered a grave and growing regional threat with terrorist connections, were vanquished faster than anyone had expected, or at least removed from power.


[..]On Thursday morning, before most of the troops arrived, the city exploded in anarchy as armed bandits rushed into the streets and fragmented militia units began to fight each other for the spoils of war.


Witnesses said that an intense gun battle raged around a former Islamist ammunition dump, and that clan warlords instantly reverted to setting up roadside checkpoints and shaking down motorists, reminiscent of the years of chaos before the Islamists pacified the city in June.


By Wednesday, the Islamist military had been decimated by Ethiopian airstrikes and mass desertions. Clan elders, traditionally the pillars of Somali society, pulled their troops and firepower out of the Union of Islamic Courts, or U.I.C., after a string of back-to-back military loses in which more than 1,000 fighters, mostly teenage boys, were quickly mowed down by the better-trained and equipped Ethiopian-backed forces.


“Our children were getting annihilated,” said Abdi Hulow, an elder with the powerful Hawiye clan. “We couldn’t sustain it.”


By Thursday, government officials said, many of the Islamist leaders had fled into the thickly forested areas to the south, where the government plans to hunt them down. But there were also worries that the Islamists would wage guerrilla warfare, as they have threatened.


“The U.I.C. may have decided not to fight the Ethiopians and their allies this time around,” said Ted Dagne, an Africa specialist for Congressional Research Service. But he added: “This does not mean the U.I.C. is finished. The U.I.C. fighters simply changed their uniform to a civilian cloth.”


Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, an Islamist leader, said Thursday that his forces had surrendered Mogadishu to avoid a bloodbath. “We don’t want to see Mogadishu destroyed,” he told Al Jazeera television by telephone from an undisclosed location.


Mr. Hulow and other elders said they had asked transitional leaders for positions in the new government in exchange for support. Ali Mohammed Gedi, the prime minister, told the elders that first he needed help in disarming the militias.


Mr. Gedi also gave a short news conference on the outskirts of Mogadishu in which he reached out to the Somali diaspora, saying: “We need your help. It’s time to come home.”


One group was noticeably absent from all these talks: conservative clerics, who seemed to have overplayed their cards. MORE

But Al Qaeda has always had an interest in Somalia and if they are advising, they will tell them to fall back as the Taliban did in Afghanistan, and prepare for guerrilla war. I don't think we've heard the last from the Islamic Courts.
It is interesting like in most parts of Africa, tribal elders hold the real power. The side they take has the upper hand.

Ethiopia Marches on Mogadishu

Bolstered by Bush Administration expressions of support for it's invasion of Somalia, Ethiopian troops appear to be destined to surround Mogadishu. However, the consequences of this action seems unclear. Ethiopia is not likely to occupy Somalia, since doing so would face non-symetric conflict that they have too few troops to sustain.
The most likely explanation is they have been persuaded by the Bush Administration to invade to bring the Islamic Courts to the negotiation table with the weak UN recognized government. But will that strategy work? Certainly the foreign fighters active on the side of the Islamic Courts will not fight for a negotiated settlement. They will want to forward their ambition of Islamic revolution.
So Islamic Courts troops seem to fade into the countryside as the Ethiopians advance, seeking to fight on their terms since they can't compete with tanks and planes.
The most likely outcome is another strategic foreign policy loss for the inept simplistic thinking Bush Administration.
washingtonpost.com

U.N. officials warned of a humanitarian crisis in Somalia, while fears remained high that Ethiopia's aggressive military campaign could have disastrous consequences not only for Somalia but across the Horn of Africa. "I find it perplexing what the Ethiopians are up to," said David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia. "Over the long term, I don't see where this gets them. And one wonders how long they can hang on in this situation, because eventually it's going to turn into a nasty guerrilla war, and I don't think the Ethiopians have the stomach to carry on with that kind of campaign."


[..]It was unclear Tuesday whether Ethiopian troops were preparing to invade Mogadishu or merely surround it. But Shinn and others noted that a force of 15,000 troops had failed to subdue the capital in 1993, when 18 U.S. troops were killed in an incident depicted in the book and film "Black Hawk Down."


At a news conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said that he had no plans to push into Mogadishu but that the campaign was only half-completed. The only option now, he added, was to win. He said that he was pleased at how swiftly the campaign had gone and that 3,000 to 4,000 Ethiopian troops had "broken the back" of the Islamic Courts movement, which he has repeatedly accused of supporting secessionist groups in Ethiopia.


As Ethiopian troops pushed ahead, however, the Islamic Courts militias appeared to withdraw almost simultaneously from their front line positions, suggesting a coordinated strategy rather than a chaotic retreat, analysts said. It was unclear where the Islamic fighters went. Some were spotted with their battle gear around Mogadishu; analysts said it was likely that most headed into the bush to prepare for a war on their own terms.


[..]A U.N. report this year found that at least 10 countries were in some way involved in the conflict in Somalia, a sign of the country's strategic importance in the region. And Monday, witnesses said fighters from Eritrea, a bitter foe of Ethiopia, as well as from Pakistan were among those fighting alongside the Islamic militias.


[..]The United States and Ethiopia have been of one mind that a complete takeover of Somalia by the Islamic Courts is unacceptable, because of fears that the country could become a base for Muslim extremists.


Yet U.S. policy in Somalia has been widely criticized for having the opposite of its intended effect, often encouraging the expansion of the Courts movement. This year, the United States supported warlords who called themselves an "anti-terrorism" coalition. The warlords generally bribed and terrorized ordinary Somalis, who came to despise them. The Islamic Courts came to power as an alternative to the hated warlords, establishing order based on Islamic law village by village and earning widespread support from beleaguered Somalis tired of 15 years of near-anarchy.


More recently, perceived U.S. support for Ethiopia, like U.S. sponsorship of the U.N. resolution calling for the African Union deployment, appears to have been used by the Courts movement to rally support.

Somalia Erupts in War Against Ethiopian Troops

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.

The Horn of Africa Headed For War

With the US bogged down, breaking it's military in Iraq, the main fight in with Al Qaeda remains were it has always been, in Afghanistan. But now shifts to the Horn of Africa. Somalia has it's own Islamic revolution going on with the dominant leaders long time affiliates with Al Qaeda in the The Council of Islamic Courts. While there are moderates in the group, the main players are aggressive and in control.
The week central government in the north is propped up by Ethiopian troops. Eritrea, who has it's own conflict over borders with Ethiopia, has sent special forces to training and equip The Council of Islamic Courts.
Naturally, the Bush Administration has few options. So far they have alienated The Council by supporting the very warlords that shot up US troops 10 years ago. The Courts have threatened Ethiopian troops with attack. Ethiopia has said, "bring it on."
The "clash of civilizations" advocates are smiling today. From Robert D. Novak column today, he quotes the Iraq Study Group report:

"The United States will not be able to achieve its goals in the Middle East unless the United States deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict. There must be a renewed and sustained commitment by the United States to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts."

Then he quotes Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel scathing warning to world:

"Until the United States helps lead a renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace process, there will be no prospect for broader Middle East peace and stability." He went further by warning of a "Judeo-Christian/Muslim split" that "would inflame the world."

washingtonpost.com

Among administration officials, Congress, U.S. allies and other interested and fearful parties, there is a rising sense that Somalia is spinning rapidly out of control. But even as events there have focused Washington's attention, they have led to a wave of finger-pointing and a feeling that there are few good ideas and little time for turning the situation around.


A wide range of interviews and commentary last week provided assessments that differed only in their degree of bleakness and apportionment of blame.


"The Council of Islamic Courts is now controlled by . . . East Africa al-Qaeda cell individuals," Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi Frazer said of Mogadishu's new rulers.


Early hopes of a power-sharing deal with secular politicians have dissipated as Courts Chairman Hassan Dahir Aweys -- put on the U.S. terrorist list in 2001 as the head of a militant group accused of having links to al-Qaeda in the 1990s -- and Aden Ayrow, who heads the Courts' military arm, have increased their power.


Moderates remain within the Courts, a coalition of local Islamist groups and militias that drove CIA-supported warlords out of Mogadishu, Frazer said. But "they are not emerging as they could get their heads taken off, literally."


The Islamists have ignored U.S. insistence that they turn over three al-Qaeda operatives -- the core of what is called the East African cell -- who the administration says took refuge in Somalia after terrorist attacks in Africa, including the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.


In a taped statement released in July, bin Laden called on Somalis to begin preparing for regional war. He recalled the 1994 withdrawal of U.S. military forces after a warlord attack killed 18 U.S. troops, saying, "This time, victory will be far easier."


U.S. intelligence officials described the statement at the time as part of bin Laden's failing claim to the leadership of a worldwide Islamic movement, despite the dispersion of the al-Qaeda network by the U.S. terrorism fight. Now they are not so certain.


[...]Ethiopia, a Christian-dominated nation, also fought a war with Somalia in the 1970s, over the ethnic Somali and largely Muslim Ethiopian province of Ogaden.


Last week, Somali Islamists threatened a "major attack" if the Ethiopians do not withdraw by Tuesday. Ethiopia has said, in essence, bring it on.


[...]"By making a bad bet on the warlords to do our bidding," incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) charged last week, "the administration has managed to strengthen the Courts, weaken our position and leave no good options. This is one of the least-known but most dangerous developments in the world, and the administration lacks a credible strategy to deal with it."

Somalia: Another Failed State Haven for Al Qaeda?

An editorial in todays washingtonpost.com illustrates only one part of the story, indeed a biased viewpoint based on a prejudice that all Islamic nationalists are supporters of Al Qaeda. This kind of shrill alarmist statements undermine any attempt to moderate the ICC, the emerging party in Somalia. Then after fowling the nest, the article calls for contacts with moderates in the ICC. Indeed, that is the appropriate course.
The US has been supporting some of the same warlords that shot down the Apache helicopter in Mogadishu, an event that hastened the end of US presence. How is it inappropriate to talk to a government that may have members who have contacts within Al Qaeda? Is talking to Al Qaeda worthy of a death sentance? This religious based war fever is the most dangerous political idea floating around this earth. We need to act to restrain it. Read this article from an independent source of intelligence on Somalia.

FOUR MONTHS ago an Islamic fundamentalist movement gained control of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, after defeating an alliance of local warlords backed by the United States. Since then the Islamic Courts Union, as the alliance is called, has expanded its control over much of southern Somalia, including the port city of Kismaayo. It has alternatively negotiated and skirmished with a rival, internationally backed government that clings to a base in the western town of Baidoa. It has come to the brink of war with neighboring Ethiopia, which reportedly has sent troops into Somalia, and has won the support of Ethiopia's hostile neighbor, Eritrea.
The Islamic courts' central council has meanwhile come under the control of an extremist who is on the U.S. government's list of terrorists. One of its principal militia commanders is linked to murders of Western aid workers and journalists and is believed to be sheltering three members of the al-Qaeda movement who were involved in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. There are reports that more foreign fighters are arriving in Mogadishu to join the movement, drawn by its call for jihad against Christians in Ethiopia.


What is the United States doing about this dangerous combination of an emerging terrorist base and possible regional war in East Africa? The sad and alarming answer is next to nothing. Since its allies were driven out of the Somali capital in June, the Bush administration has had few contacts and obtained scant intelligence about the Islamic courts. Officials maintain they don't even know for sure whether Ethiopian troops are in the country; the Somalis say they have seen and even fought them, but the Ethiopian government denies it.


In short, Somalia is looking more and more like Afghanistan in the late 1990s -- dominated by an Islamic fundamentalist movement that shelters al-Qaeda; prone to the meddling of neighbors; virtually ignored by the United States. Sadly, the chief difference is that, because of poor intelligence, even a military strike such as that attempted by the Clinton administration against Osama bin Laden in 1998 looks unfeasible.


The administration may have several international crises to worry about, but it cannot afford to neglect this gathering threat. It ought to appoint a special envoy to the region who could begin to work with the Ethiopian, Eritrean and regional Somali governments, and try to restrain them from touching off a regional war. The administration should seek contact with moderate elements in the Islamic courts (there are some) and encourage the ongoing mediation efforts of the Arab League. It should exercise greater control over the Somali coastline. It should consider giving diplomatic recognition to the breakaway northern region of Somaliland, which has a benign government. If the terrorist threat in Somalia cannot be eliminated by direct action, it must at least be contained.

Afghanistan Among the Failed States Threatening The World

The World Bank has released a report on the failed state list. Unfortunately, they don't list all the countries, for political reasons. Notably, Afghanistan is on the list. I suspect Iraq is as well, or should be. Gaza, the West Bank, many African states, Cambodia, Kosovo, and of course Haiti and Sudan.
It's most interesting that the US, most notably, Bush has had a direct hand in creating the conditions that failed states threaten us.
washingtonpost.com

The number of weak and poorly governed nations that can provide a breeding ground for global terrorism has grown sharply over the past three years, despite increased Western efforts to improve conditions in such states, according to a new World Bank report.


"Fragile" countries, whose deepening poverty puts them at risk from terrorism, armed conflict and epidemic disease, have jumped to 26 from 17 since the report was last issued in 2003. Five states graduated off the list, but 14 made new appearances, including Nigeria and seven other African countries, Kosovo, Cambodia, East Timor, and the West Bank and Gaza. Twelve states, including Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan, made both lists.


[...]Hurdles facing the countries at risk, often referred to as "failed" or "failing" states, include "weak security, fractured societal relations, corruption, breakdown in the rule of law, lack of mechanisms for generating legitimate power and authority" and limited investment resources to meet basic needs, the report said.


To avoid "adverse spillover effects -- such as conflict, terrorism and epidemic diseases -- the international community and the Bank need to find more effective ways" of assisting them, it said.


The Bush administration has described failing states as a major threat to U.S. security. "The danger they pose is now unparalleled," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote in a column that appeared late last year in The Washington Post. "Absent responsible state authority, threats that would and should be contained within a country's borders can now melt into the world and wreak untold havoc.


"Weak and failing states," Rice said, "serve as global pathways that facilitate the spread of pandemics, the movement of criminals and terrorists, and the proliferation of the world's most dangerous weapons."

Eritrea Sending Military Supplies to Islamist in Mogadishu

The contest in Somalia has turned regional with Eritrea supporting the Islamists in control of Mogadishu. This is indeed a concern because Eritrea has bested Ethiopia in the battlefield on a number of occassions. It's also interesting that the EU doesn't trust Ethiopia in it's support of the interim Somali government.
WaPo

A cargo plane landed in the Somali capital Wednesday, and the interim government said it was carrying Eritrean weapons and supplies for a rival Islamic militia.


Residents reported seeing a medium-size aircraft with no recognizable markings land at Mogadishu's old international airport. The plane was only the second to land at the airport since the Islamic militia reopened it days ago.


"The plane was carrying antiaircraft missiles and other weapons donated by Eritrea to the Islamists," the deputy prime minister, Ismail Mohamed Hurre, said from Baidoa, 150 miles northwest of the capital and the base of the fragile interim government.

Ethiopia Gets the Nod From Washington To Invade Somalia

It is apparent that the Bush Administration has given Ethiopia the silent encouragement to invade Somalia in support of the interim government. I seriously doubt very many people are too worried about Somali self-determination since a Islamic fundamentalist group allied with Al Qaeda controls half the country. The sad part is that Islamic rule is probably the only hope for Somalia to end the violence. It's unfortunate a good number of the leaders of this movement ally with Al Qaeda.
Africa" href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article1193088.ece">Independent.co.uk

Ethiopian troops moved further into Somalia yesterday, opening a new front in the American-led "war on terror". An estimated 5,000 Ethiopian soldiers are believed to be inside Somalia, protecting the weak transitional government from an Islamist force that controls half the country.


The US does not want Somalia to fall into the hands of the Islamists; so far, regional observers point out, neither the US nor any other UN Security Council member has condemned the Ethiopian invasion.

Somalia Headed Towards Islamic State Allied with Al Qaeda

In the past few months, conditions in Somalia have taken a potentially disasterous turn. The Islamic Courts Council took control of Mogadishu, driving out a US supported alliance of warlords. Ethiopia has quietly infultrated troops into Northern Somalia supporting the Transitional Federal Government, a fractured group of Somali's some allied with Ethiopia, with no actual power, put together by a consortium of governmental organizations including the western powers.
Meanwhile, the I.C.C. has been consolidating power, and a faction allied with Al Qaeda and seeking to impose sharia law on the Somali people, who are unlikely to accept it.
Clearly what the US does next may turn the tide.
PINR

Since June 5, when the Islamic Courts Union (I.C.U.) -- now institutionalized and renamed the Islamic Courts Council (I.C.C) -- took control of Somalia's official capital Mogadishu, routing a rival alliance of Washington-backed warlords, the country has been in an incipient revolutionary situation.


The revolutionary character of Somalia's politics became evident when the hard-line Islamist faction of the I.C.C. led by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who is on Washington's list of al-Qaeda supporters, gained ascendancy over the moderate group headed by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed on June 25. Whereas Ahmed had said that the I.C.U. was not interested in imposing an Islamist social model on Somalia and was only concerned with bringing peace and order to the country, Aweys insisted that the new I.C.C. would not be satisfied with anything less than a state governed by Shari'a law.


The rise of the I.C.C. changed the balance of power in Somalia's stateless society decisively, throwing the internationally supported but increasingly impotent Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.), based in the town of Baidoa, on the defensive. As the I.C.C. swept through most of Somalia's south and consolidated its gains, the T.F.G. desperately pleaded for support from international and regional organizations in the form of a peacekeeping mission, and was met with a tepid response. Alarmed by the possibility of a hostile Islamist state on its border, Ethiopia sent troops into areas of Somalia as yet outside I.C.C. control and reportedly deployed troops and armored vehicles in Baidoa to protect the T.F.G.


[...]Although most Western analysts have predicted that rifts between the hard-liners and moderates in the I.C.C. would surface, that traditional clan rivalries would hamstring the I.C.C. and that Somalia's generally moderate Muslim population would resist the imposition of Shari'a law, none of those projection has yet to materialize.


[...]Distrustful of Ethiopian intentions in Somalia, the Arab bloc now appears to have taken sides, bolstering the I.C.C.'s position and rendering the efforts of international organizations, the A.U. and Western powers to spur a power-sharing agreement problematic.


[...]Ousted warlord and ex-governor of Somalia's Middle Shabelle region Mohammad Dheere was reportedly shuttling between Addis Ababa and Baidoa in an effort to revive the warlords' alliance and unite it with the T.F.G. under Ethiopia's military and financial support. Warlords Botan Ise Alin and Abdi Nur Siyed reportedly crossed from Somalia into Ethiopia.


The T.F.G. executive's dependence on Ethiopia, which fought a war with Somalia in 1977 and is a prime target of Somali nationalist sentiment, and its collusion with discredited warlords indicates its desperate position. It no longer appears that the T.F.G. is coherent and credible enough to be a negotiating partner in a reconciliation process -- despite the promise of a "joint committee" to meet with the I.C.C. -- leaving the A.U., U.N., and the U.S. and European powers that are working within the Washington-inspired Contact Group (C.G.) with the major pillar of their policy of containing and moderating the I.C.C. shattered. The stage is set for a possible confrontation between Addis Ababa and the I.C.C. amidst the wreckage of the T.F.G.


[...]With the exception of Ethiopia, which has actively supported Yusuf's faction in the T.F.G., and Eritrea, which has a simmering border conflict with Ethiopia and has backed the I.C.C., the other external actors with interests in Somalia have proven unable to adapt to the rise of the Courts and the collapse of the T.F.G. with coherent and decisive strategies, and have remained at least one step behind events on the ground.


Divided within themselves by member states that have taken sides in past internal Somali conflicts, the A.U., and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (I.G.A.D.), a regional grouping of Somalia and its neighbors, have given formal support to the T.F.G. and have promised to provide troops for a peacekeeping mission if an exemption is made to the arms embargo by the U.N. Security Council. Their support for the T.F.G., however, has not run deep and their effectiveness is dependent on diplomatic and financial backing from Western powers, which have also given formal support to the T.F.G., but have been unwilling to empower it.


The United States, which backed the defeated warlords in an effort to capture al-Qaeda operatives whom it believes are being sheltered by the Islamists, has drawn back and now appears to have decided to work with international and regional organizations and not to follow its former Ethiopian partner on the path of confrontation. Interested European powers, especially Great Britain and Italy -- the former colonial rulers of Somalia -- have done the same, as has the United Nations.


The result of the convergence of the preponderance of external players has not been a firm and resolute consensus, but a tentative and compromised approach that has deprived them of any control over the evolving revolutionary situation in Somalia.


During the week of July 9, an A.U.-I.G.A.D.-European "fact-finding mission" visited Somalia in an effort to determine the feasibility of deploying peacekeepers, and met with pleas for immediate deployment from the T.F.G. executive and outright rejection from the I.C.C., which threatened publicly to wage war against any foreign force. Nonetheless, when the mission released its report on July 10, it expressed "optimism" that the I.C.C. and T.F.G. would be "willing to dialogue."


[...]Analysts tend to underestimate the advantage that ascending revolutionary movements derive from their adherents' sense of advancing toward more successes, the solidarity generated by that sense and the appeal that it has for a dispossessed public. The I.C.C. has internal divisions and external foes, one of which -- Ethiopia, especially if it gained Washington's blessing -- can pose a serious threat to the realization of its aims. Yet the I.C.C.'s weaknesses do not seem to have retarded its forward march. MORE

More Chaos in Somalia

Somalia again is in the news with a Taliban-like Islamist take over of Mogadishu. The US belatedly supported the losing team. Some say it hurt more than it helped. Somalia has been a failed state for most of the last decade. With multiple warlords competing for power, the only hope of resolution was from a uniting ideologic force, such as provided by Islamic fundamentalism. Time will tell if they will turn out like the Taliban, providing space and protection for Al Qaeda. One can only hope thats not the case. But with the US bogged down in Iraq, we have little choice but to wait.
New York Times

Terrorist groups linked to Al Qaeda may just have won a new foothold in the strategic Horn of Africa, as radical Islamist militias captured Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.


The immediate concern among many Somalis is a forcible imposition of harsh Islamic law, Taliban style. The larger international concern is that Mogadishu's new rulers may follow the Taliban's example in another way, sheltering international terrorist operations in a region within tempting striking distance of vulnerable countries on the Arabian peninsula and in East Africa.


The Bush administration wasn't exactly caught looking the other way. But with more than 130,000 American troops tied down in Iraq and some 20,000 more in Afghanistan, and with America's reputation in the Islamic world driven to an all-time low, Washington's ability to respond effectively to a very real danger was severely compromised.


For want of better options, the United States had thrown its support to a different set of warlords with few visible merits beyond their willingness to fight their Islamist rivals. But by some accounts, Washington's support for these warlords only discredited them in the eyes of many Somalis.


The parallels to Afghanistan when the Taliban took power in 1996 are uncanny, and frightening. The sequel, however, does not have to turn out quite as horribly. Mogadishu's new masters claim to be interested mainly in establishing peace, stability and Islamic rule at home. They insist that they are willing to talk with anybody, which at least raises a possibility that they could be talked out of sheltering international terrorists.


With good luck, perhaps a new battlefront with international terrorism may yet be avoided. Luck, however, is no substitute for a more supple and effective American strategy against a highly mobile foe like multinational Islamist terrorism. Washington needs to develop more agile responses of its own. It especially has to avoid getting drawn into quagmires that force it to fight on the terrorists' terms and timetable.

US is Destabilizing the Government of Somalia

Having no faith in the seated government in Somalia, the US is backing Secular Warlords against Islamic fundamentalists battling for control of the capital. In supporting the warlords as opposed to the government of Somalia, they are undermining it's political credibility, and ensuring that the country will remain destabilized indefinitely and a haven for Al Qaeda. The Bush Administration doesn't seem to be able to see beyond the end of it's nose for consequences of it's actions.
WaPo

More than a decade after U.S. troops withdrew from Somalia following a disastrous military intervention, officials of Somalia's interim government and some U.S. analysts of Africa policy say the United States has returned to the African country, secretly supporting secular warlords who have been waging fierce battles against Islamic groups for control of the capital, Mogadishu.


The latest clashes, last week and over the weekend, were some of the most violent in Mogadishu since the end of the American intervention in 1994, and left 150 dead and hundreds more wounded. Leaders of the interim government blamed U.S. support of the militias for provoking the clashes.


U.S. officials have declined to directly address on the record the question of backing Somali warlords, who have styled themselves as a counterterrorism coalition in an open bid for American support. Speaking to reporters recently, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States would "work with responsible individuals . . . in fighting terror. It's a real concern of ours -- terror taking root in the Horn of Africa. We don't want to see another safe haven for terrorists created. Our interest is purely in seeing Somalia achieve a better day."


U.S. officials have long feared that Somalia, which has had no effective government since 1991, is a desirable place for al-Qaeda members to hide and plan attacks. The country is strategically located on the Horn of Africa, which is only a boat ride away from Yemen and a longtime gateway to Africa from the Middle East. No visas are needed to enter Somalia, there is no police force and no effective central authority.


Leaders of the transitional government said they have warned U.S. officials that working with the warlords is shortsighted and dangerous.


"We would prefer that the U.S. work with the transitional government and not with criminals," the prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, said in an interview. "This is a dangerous game. Somalia is not a stable place and we want the U.S. in Somalia. But in a more constructive way. Clearly we have a common objective to stabilize Somalia, but the U.S. is using the wrong channels."


[...]The issue of U.S. backing came to the forefront this winter when warlords formed the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism after a fundamentalist Islamic group began asserting itself in the capital, setting up courts of Islamic law and building schools and hospitals.


Soon after, the coalition of warlords were well-equipped with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and antiaircraft guns, which were used in heavy fighting in the capital last week. It was the second round of fighting this year, following clashes in March that killed more than 90 people, mostly civilians, and emptied neighborhoods around the capital.


In a report to the U.N. Security Council this month, the world body's monitoring group on Somalia said it was investigating an unnamed country's secret support for an anti-terrorism alliance in apparent violation of a U.N. arms embargo.