somalia thread

some current developments/stories/links i found of interest

there have been reports of ethiopian troop movements again inside somalia, this time reportedly vacating two recent bases

earlier this week

Ethiopian troops move away from Kala-beyrka junction in central Somalia

BELEDWEYN (Sh. M. Network) - the Ethiopian troops in the Kala-beyrka intersection in Hiran region have moved away from their bases there on Thursday morning, witnesses told Shabelle radio on Thursday.

Reports from Hiran region say that the Ethiopian troops were in the junction about two months and completely left from their military bases there in the region and moved to the side of Fer-Fer town in the Somali region in Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian troops arrived there on 19th May 2009 and conducted more search operations in the neighborhoods and the traffic traveling on the road that connects between the towns of the region during their presence there.

It is unclear the reason of the Ethiopian troops' withdrawal from the Kala-bayrka intersection in central Somalia.

and, by saturday

Ethiopian troops vacate in Yed village in southern Somalia

EED (Sh. M. Network) – the Ethiopian troops in Yed village in Bakol region have vacated from there in a southern Somalia, witnesses told Shabelle radio on Saturday.

Residents said that more Ethiopian troops with many battle wagons in Yed village which borders with Ethiopia had completely left their base there in Bakol region in the south of the country.

Locals told reporters that the Ethiopian troops were in parts of the region for several months supporting the transitional government officials who were chased from Bay and Bakol and moved to the side of Barey in the Somali region in Ethiopia.

Reports say that the Ethiopian troops used to support the transitional government officials in Basy and Bakol administrations earlier saying that their withdrawal came as the traditional elders of Bakol region ordered the Ethiopians to the leave from the village quickly.

...

..it is unclear whether the Ethiopian troops left completely or will return back to the region

there have been clashes already in the hiiraan region following their pullout, reportedly initiated by hizbul islam forces

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biyokulule online republishes two january 2007 dispatches from the (expensive) private intel newsletter the indian ocean newsletter, citing closed sources, that sure would have come in handy at that time to have had access to. both provide more information on the active roles of the u.s. and kenya during the late-2006 invasion

According to information obtained in Nairobi by The Indian Ocean Newsletter from a Kenyan military intelligence officer, the Ethiopian army had indeed been accompanied by American military advisors when it went into Somalia. One or two advisors were affected to each Ethiopian platoon command and enabled to improve the coordination of the forces combating the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC). These advisors were from the American Special Forces (the Delta Force commandos) under the orders of the Pentagon Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). They have sophisticated communications equipment enabling them to receive orders from American military vessels sailing off the coast of Somalia. Before the conflict, the military intelligence services of Kenya, Ethiopia and the United States had drawn up a list of the forces, equipment and positions of the UIC militia, which they had tended to overestimate.

Kenya was subsequently the only IGAD country to have advance information of the air raids against the Islamists in south Somalia. American and Kenyan aid, and not only in military intelligence, has been indispensable in ousting the Somalian Islamists from the Ras Kamboni zone where they had taken refuge. After the air raid by an American AC-130, an American Special Forces commando was sent on the ground to support the Ethiopian army. At the same time, the Kenyan air force intervened using unmarked helicopters to oust Islamist militia hidden in the forest around Ras Kamboni. It was then only after a bloody battle that the Ethiopian army managed to defeat the Somalian islamists, by that time completely surrounded.

and

In addition to sealing their border to close the exit door for Unionof Islamic Courts (UIC) militia and Somalian civilians fleeing the combat zone, the Kenyan authorities have provided logistic support to the Ethiopian army and its Somalian and American allies. Kenyan air force planes have regularly flown over the Ras Kamboni region to carry out reconnaissance and surveillance operations of this zone where Islamist militia had taken refuge. Other similar air-borne missions have monitored retreating Islamist militia convoys. The Kenyan military intelligence services passed on these data to their American and Ethiopian counterparts, enabling them to carry out their military operations and air strikes. According to information obtained by The Indian Ocean Newsletter from a military intelligence source based in Nanyuki, a Kenyan helicopter flying over the Ras Kamboni region last week near the border town of Hulugho was fired on by Somalian Islamist militia using light arms.

Two other Kenyan helicopters in the same zone were also fired on and the windshield of one of them was hit. On 9 January Kenyan helicopters participated in an air raid against Somalian Islamists in Hayi. A ground fight also took place around Amuna between Kenyan soldiers and Somalian Islamists who were trying to cross the border. The Kenyan ministry of defence sent reinforcements to the border crossing points at Amuna, Liboi and Hulugho. Newsflash alert sent to subscribers on 16.1.2007.The Kenyan government has given strict instructions that no information on Kenya`s direct involvement in this conflict should be leaked to the press. The Kenyan military intelligence services have also asked Kenyan diplomats to deny reports that a rocket from an Ethiopian aircraft aimed at a column of Islamists in the South of Somalia had crashed into Kenyan territory.

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minnesota public radio: Rep. Ellison says U.S. trying to ensure safe return of missing Somalis

St. Paul, Minn. — Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison said the U.S. government is trying to ensure the safe return of some of the young Somali-American men believed to be fighting with a terrorist group in their homeland.

Ellison said he has been included in classified briefings about efforts to bring the missing men back to the Twin Cities.

...

Ellison wouldn't offer more details of the plans, saying the discussions were classified. But he said the efforts involve private non-governmental organizations as well as government entities. A State Department official did not respond to requests for interviews.

more spying by the INGO's in somalia is not likely to help anyone

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latest analysis from prof weinstein covers events from mid-june thru july 14, focusing on the lack of enthusiasm to respond to the TFG2's pleas for direct international intervention to save their butts. and elaborates on a point i made recently in the previous incarnation of africa comments as to why there is int'l interest in keeping the islamists preoccupied w/ fighting each other

Desperate Call and Supporter's Compromised Response

What is clear is that Somalia’s neighbors appear genuinely to view the gains of the opposition as threats to their security; they are fearful of the Islamist opposition taking over southern and central Somalia, particularly if it results in an “emirate” established by the transnationalist Salafist al-Shabaab movement. The armed opposition, whether transnationalist or nationalist, has ultimate irredentist aims to incorporate ethnic Somali populations in Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti into a greater Somali state. It is the threat of irredentism, although it is presently remote; concern for the possibility of ethnic Somali unrest within their borders aided and abetted by Islamists; and vulnerability to terrorist acts that are responsible for I.G.A.D.’s position and appeal. Only Somalia’s neighbors, among the external actors, have such perceived vital interests.

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here's some very relevant background material on int'l efforts, in this case intervention by the cia, to shape somalia's governance in the effort to head off irrendentist threats to the region. this is taken from a 2005 Roobdoon Forum analysis. (see the original for footnotes)

In September 1974, a conference held in Washington, sponsored by the Center for the National Security Studies was presented proceedings and papers on the subject of “The CIA and Covert Action”. Roger Morris and Richard Mauzy presented a comprehensive piece of research which is, as they state, based on both written sources and many oral conversations that they had with US decision-makers and foreign policy officials who supplied them many of their research discourse [4]. The title of their research paper is: Following the Scenario: Reflection on Five Case Histories in the Mode and Aftermath of CIA Intervention.

Morris and Mauzy unveil that the U. S. Central Intelligence Agency had been clandestinely funneling mainly a financial support to the political actors in Somalia since mid 1960s, in an effort to ward off Somali Weyn tendencies inside top brass leadership. In 1967 election campaigns, for example, the CIA provided thousands of dollars to assist in the election of the Prime late Prime Minister Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal and some of his fellow Somali Youth League (SYL) members. Here is a selection from Morris and Mauzy’s case history of CIA ‘campaign of financing’ in the 1967 Somali elections:

An impoverished land of less than three million along the northeastern coast of Africa where the Indian Ocean meets the Gulf of Aden, Somalia was of concern to Washington for a number of reasons. Irredentist claims threatened border warfare with both Kenya and Ethiopia, the latter a long-time U.S. client state under Haile Selassie and the site of a major intelligence base. Somalia was also an early recipient of Soviet aid in Africa, and its coastline held potentially strategic ports for any future rivalry in the Persian Gulf or Indian Ocean, an interest shared by France and Britain. At that, however, the country was apparently not an urgent concern in U.S. diplomacy. When Somalia predictably rejected a 1963 American offer of "defensive" arms, conditioned on the exclusion of all other supplies, the State Department leaked its "displeasure" but seemingly did no more.

Over the next four years, 1963-1967, official U.S.-Somali relations were distant and U.S. aid next to nothing while Somali leaders visited the Soviet bloc, Somali newspapers published anti-American forgeries planted by Soviet intelligence, and the country fought a brief but bloody border war with Ethiopia. Then suddenly, early in 1967, history took a turn for the better. President Abd-i-Rashid Shermarke was elected for a six-year term as President in June and in July appointed as Premier Muhammad Egal, American-educated and avowedly pro-Western. By fall, U.S. aid was resumed in amounts twice the previous total since independence, and Somalia had concluded a border agreement with Ethiopia [see the footnote to read the 1967-68 Somali Border Agreements with Ethiopia and Kenya] [5]. In 1968 Egal visited the United States, following a visit to Somalia by Vice President Humphrey, and was hailed by President Johnson as "enormously constructive in a troubled area of Africa." What the two leaders did not discuss, say official sources, was how "constructive" the CIA had been for Mr. Egal, whose rise, to power was reportedly facilitated by thousands of dollars in covert support to Egal and other pro-Western elements in the ruling Somali Youth League party prior to the 1967 Presidential election.

In retrospect, this clandestine bankrolling in Somalia seems very modest by CIA standards, only a tiny fraction of what the Agency has spent in a month in Southeast Asia or even what it spent in the Congo in the early sixties. And its immediate benefits - in rising U.S. influence, in the detente with a grateful Ethiopia - no doubt seemed real enough at the time. In any event, several sources say the subsidies were discontinued in 1968. But the withdrawal was to be perhaps too late. On October 15, 1969, while Egal was again visiting the United States, President Shermarke was assassinated. A week later the Army seized power, dissolving the National Assembly and Constitution and arresting the entire Cabinet, including Egal. Among the charges against Egal would be corruption of the electoral process and complicity with foreign intelligence services. Ironically, the bizarre CIA political contributions before 1967 may have been a decisive factor in the eventual fall of the Agency's candidate [6].

Reflecting the unwise decisions made by the CIA about its covert political interventions and subsidies, Premier Egal’s government lasted less than three years. In October 21st 1969, a military led coup d'état replaced the civilian government, detaining and charging (as mentioned above) the civilian Prime Minister of ‘complicity with foreign intelligence’. The military men have actually spoiled the CIA agenda – whether this was also instance of complicity of another foreign factor/s or genuine local revolutionary respond that vehemently opposed to the unfolding scenarios of border agreements, is debatable. However, one thing was sure: the military takeover was a bloodless transition that succeeded to frustrate the pro-American elements in the country and ended the American subsidiary civilian government. Italian writer, Luigi Pestalozza, who observed and recorded the early unfolding events of the Somali military Revolution states that “No tears were shed for the men who thus left the stage forever, disappearing from the [political] history of Somalia [7].”

shermarke's son, of course, is now PM for the latest engineered govt after relocating to mogadishu from virginia. and when not in mogadishu, he can usually be contacted thru the u.s. embassy in nairobi