Somalia

John McCain seems to be in a constant state of confusion. John McCain misspoke and confused his African countries while talking to reporters on the Straight Talk Express today. This time, he was bailed out not by Joe Lieberman, but by his close aide Mark Salter. “How can we bring pressure on the government of Somalia?” McCain asked, which prompted Mark Salter to correct him. “Sudan,” Salte

  A front-less war is one a wise man would never pick as his choice of war to fight. But the dictator Meles is not a wise man, well he is, no he isn’t. I don’t knowwwwww. The guy has his seasons of good and bad. You know how he usually screws things up and tries to explain [...]

This is the story of Asha Mohamed, who fled Somalia due to the fighting between Ethiopian troops and Somalian rebels. “We used to live in Karaan. It was safer than most places in Mogadishu, but las month there was fighting (in Mogadishu). As usual I went to the market where I sold vegetables. We could hear [...]

Wiederum ist eine Jacht vor der Küste Somalias von Piraten entführt worden. Dabei soll es sich um eine deutsche Familie handeln, die mit ihrem französischen Kapitän in den gefährlichen Gewässern unterwegs war. Die beiden Männer, die Frau und ein Kind waren vor der nördlichen Küste Somalias unterwegs als sie von den Piraten überfallen und an [...]

East African Standard1 June 2008 Some military officers assigned to the African Union’s peacekeeping force in the country are accused of selling weapons seized from Shabaab insurgents. KEVIN J KELLEY reports. The United States government as well as individual Ugandans and Kenyans are violating the United Nations ban on arms trading with Somalia, a UN monitoring group [...]

Over the past few months as the primary debates focused on Bush economic policies in America or his failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, slight mention has been made of the tragedy he created in Somalia. President Bush encouraged, and supported with US air and naval resources, an invasion of Islamic Somalia by Christian Ethiopian forces. [...]

A report by the UN monitoring group on the Somali arms embargo says Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia have been selling arms to insurgents.It cites one incident in which a group of Ugandan soldiers allegedly received $80,000 for a transaction. Some peacekeepers are accused of setting up an arms trading network through translators. The soldiers received a wish-list of weapons from arms dealers and th

  Addolora sempre quando si apprende che dei volontari italiani, che collaborano a progetti umanitari di sviluppo in un paese in guerra come la Somalia, sono stati rapiti. Dispiace e ci si chiede, forse inconsciamente guidati dai nostri egoismi, se sia giusto mettere a repentaglio la vita e la sicurezza personali, mettere in gioco una comunità, creare una situazione di tensione c

UN-sponsored talks between Somalia's transitional government and the Union of Islamic Courts scheduled to be held in neighboring Djibouti broke down when the UIC refused to meet the government face-to-face. After four days meeting UN diplomats in Djibouti, the two sides agreed to attend further talks in two weeks time. The opposition insists it will not engage in direct negotiations until the gove

The BBC catches up, but not quite. Me in December of 2007: The war in Somalia is not some obscure "African tribal conflict" - it is a direct result of international political maneuvering, just like Afghanistan. The similarities between the two countries, in fact, are striking. Both fell apart during the Cold War endgame. Afghanistan, invaded by the Soviets in 1979, has seen near-continuous warfare ever since, with some participants funded by the US. Somalia, after switching its allegiance from one superpower to another in the 80s, found itself abandoned by both in the early 90s. A coup brought down the president in 1991, and the chaos that began then has lasted until now. In conditions of chaos and instability, Somalia and Afghanistan have both provided havens for terrorists at times (surp

A top Al Qaeda leader in Somalia was killed along with 10 others during a 3AM missile strike.  Chalk another one up for the Infidels… Yahoo MOGADISHU, Somalia - The U.S. military killed a man believed to be the head of al-Qaida in Somalia and 10 others in an airstrike overnight, an Islamic insurgent group said Thursday. The [...]

American war planes killed an Islamist leader who supposedly was a key al-Qaida opereative in Somalia. Rebels said Aden Hashi Ayro, who led al Shabaab militants in their attacks on Ethiopian and government forces, was killed by the air attack which also resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians. “Infidel planes bombed Dusmareb. Two of [...]

The American military had said to have carried through an attack against what they had described as a on group to the Al-Qaeda in the Somalia during the dawn. The Americans had not identified the target, but a spokesman of the Al-Shabab military service said that the commander of the group, Aden Hashi Ayro, was the target and was died during the attack. The house of it was attacked in the city of Dusamareb, in the center of the country. At least others eight people had also died in the attempted against one. The Al-Shabab, considered a terrorist group for the United States, is the armed arm of the Union of Cortes Islâmicas (UCI), that it controlled the center and the south of the country until the beginni

At the end of 2006, President Bush encouraged Ethiopian forces to invade the Islamic nation of Somalia and throw out its Islamic leaders. The conflict has dragged on for over a year with increasing violonce and displacement of thousands of innocent civilians. In the latest manifestation of ignoring human rights, Amnesty International has accused the [...]

By Chris Floyd, The BaltimoreChronicle (Apr 24 2008) - Earlier this week, we noted reports that Ethiopian invaders in Somalia had killed several moderate clerics and other unarmed people in a mosque north of Mogadishu during the recent bloody reprisals against civilian areas launched by the Bush-backed invaders and their Somali allies. At the time, sketchy reports from the BBC indicated that at least 10 people had been killed in the mosque.Now Amnesty International has charged Ethiopian soldiers with killing 21 people in the mosque - and slitting the throats of seven of their victims, the Herald-Sun reports. Amnesty said the invaders are also holding dozens of children they captured during the raid:Amnesty said those killed at the mosque included imam Sheikh Saiid Yaha and several scholars

Press Release (25 April 2008) Amnesty International refutes statements made by the Ethiopian government on its report about a raid on the Al Hidya Mosque in Mogadishu on 19 April 2008. In the attack, Ethiopian forces killed at least 21 people, including 11 unarmed civilians inside the mosque, and detained at least 40 children and youths, aged 9 to 18. At least 10 others were killed by Ethiopian forces in the vicinity of the mosque.Reports released by the organization are based on several cross-checked, independent sources such as family members of victims, testimonies gathered at the location, including individuals present in the mosque while the killings took place, and local Amnesty International contacts.“Deliberately killing civilians is a war crime,” said Amnesty International.

Just like the rest of the world, i was shocked to learn about the recent unthinkable and heineous crime committed by Ethiopian soldiers inside a mosque in Somalia. Ethiopian soldiers have been for the longest accused of crimes like rape, torture and of course killings of innocent people. But this recent development, where Ethiopian soldiers were [...]

Air travel is becoming more affordable and places that had been shut off from the rest of the world are opening up – like the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan for example, or Hamilton, Ontario Canada. But what good is visiting another country unless we know beforehand exactly how much a pint of beer will cost when we get there? Thankfully, UK tabloid The Sun helpfully directed the attention of its readers today to www.pintprice.com, a website that allows users to find out the price of a pint of suds in various places around the world.The website also lists the countries with the cheapest and most expensive ales in the world. Unfortunately, the cheapest beer, 10p (20 cents) a glass, is to be found in places to which your travel insurance is unlikely to extend, like the Congo and Somalia or lo

Pirates armed with grenade launchers have hijacked a Spanish fishing trawler and its crew of 26 off the coast of Somalia.The Playa de Bakio was attacked 250 miles from the shoreline yesterday, and is headed back to Somalia. A Spanish navy frigate has been diverted to the scene of the hijacking.The attack comes just a week after a luxury French yacht with 30 crew on board was released by Somali pirates following payment of a £1m ransom. French special forces troops later chased the pirates as they fled inland, arresting six men and recovering £100,000 in cash. More...

By Aweys Yusuf and Abdi Sheikh, MOGADISHU, Reuters (Apr 21 2008) - The death-toll from battles between Islamist-led insurgents and allied Ethiopian-Somali troops rose to 85 on Monday, leaving corpses on the streets and deepening the Horn of Africa nation's humanitarian crisis. After mortars and machine-gun fire rocked Mogadishu over the weekend in the worst fighting for months, Islamist fighters seized the southern coastal town of Guda, killing four Somali soldiers and wounding at least seven more, locals said. "The town is under their control at the moment," politician Omar Abdullahi Farole told Reuters from the area.That attack at dawn on Monday added to at least 81 people dead in Mogadishu over the weekend. The rebels have in the last few months launched an increasing numb

During the closing months of 2006, the Bush administration urged the Ethiopian government to invade Somalia in order to crsuh what it believed was a fundamentalist Islamic government. In the ensuing warfare, the Ethiopian army easily crushed the Islamic fighters for the Somalian government. Defeating an Islamic army was one thing, but since then there [...]

Kabul, 18 April (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - US presidential candidate Barack Obama has generated broad support in Afghanistan, while Somalis would prefer to work with his Democratic rival Senator Hillary Clinton.These are the findings of a survey conducted by the international think-tank, The Senlis Council, in Afghanistan and Somalia in March and April. According to the think-tank, the results of this year's US presidential elections are "critical to both countries," as they are both "strongly affected by US policy". When asked which of the presidential candidates they would back, 69 percent of those questioned in Afghanistan favoured Obama, while 26 percent were in favour of Clinton. In Somalia, 47 percent of civilians surveyed supported Clinton, while 44 percent backed Obama.

MOGADISHU, Reuters (Apr 18 2008) - Somali authorities have released five journalists arrested for covering fighting between government troops and insurgents and their radio station is back on the air, the reporters said on Friday.Since relocating to Mogadishu at the start of 2007, the government has raided and temporarily closed most of the city's nine private radio stations at some point, accusing them of siding with Islamists waging a bloody insurgency against it."We were not interrogated, and a police officer told us that Somalia's police chief ordered our release," Radio Voice of Peace's editor Shafi Muhidin Abukar told Reuters by telephone."A policeman earlier told us that we aired wrong reports on the fighting between insurgents and government police that took place late on Wednesday

No, really. From Reuters: MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Fed up with rampant piracy plaguing their Horn of Africa country, Somalis cheered on Thursday the French troops who captured six pirates. The men, part of a group that stormed a French luxury yacht and held its 30 crew hostage for a week, were flown to France on Wednesday and [...]

The Guardian, Nairobi (April 15 2008) - A British headteacher who was shot dead in Somalia by Islamist insurgents may have been targeted because he was a Christian convert, his wife said yesterday. Daud Hassan Ali, 64, was killed outside the Hiran community education project English school in Beledweyne in central Somalia late on Sunday night, along with Rehana Ahmed, 33, a fellow British Somali teacher. She was reported to have been shot in the head.Militiamen from the Shabab rebel group also killed two Kenyan teachers after forcing them out of their houses at the school, 190 miles north-west of the capital Mogadishu. A senior commander with the Shabab yesterday claimed the teachers had died in crossfire.Ali, the school's headmaster and founder, moved to Britain in 1967, and worked as a t

By JAMEY KEATEN, Associated Press Writer PARIS - Pirates seized control of a French luxury yacht carrying 30 crew members Friday off the coast of Somalia, the French government and the ship’s owner said. Attackers stormed the 288-foot “Le Ponant” as it returned without passengers from the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, toward the Mediterranean Sea, said [...]

Piratas tomaron el control de un lujoso yate francés con 34 tripulantes en la costa de Somalia, ha informado hoy la radio France Info.La estación de radio dijo que piratas de dos barcos habían tomado el control del yate y estaban manteniendo cautiva a su tripulación. No parecía haber clientes a bordo de la nave en el momento, añadió.El ministro de Relaciones Exteriores francés dijo en un comunicado que estaba verificando reportes sobre un bote con algunos tripulantes franceses, que habría sido víctimas de un acto de piratería en el Golfo de Adén.Fuente: Reuters

The ongoing slaughter of the innocent continued in Somalia when Ethiopian soldiers blasted the market area in Mogadishu after being attacked by Muslim militants. Anti-government Muslim militants sent some mortars in the direction of Ethiopan troops who were guarding the hilltop complex of Vill Somlia and hit their position. In response Ethiopian forces sent shells [...]

MOGADISHU, Somalia, March 28 (UPI) - The transitional government in Somalia, installed 15 months ago by Ethiopian troops with U.S. support, appears ready to fall, a government official said."I feel this slipping away," Mohamed Abdirizak, an official who abandoned a middle-class life in Virginia to return to Somalia, told the Los Angeles Times.Abdirizak made the comment as he ducked to avoid bullets fired at the palace in Mogadishu, the capital.Leaders in the Transitional Federal Government say they are desperately in need of more support from the African Union, which has sent only a fraction of the promised peacekeeping contingent, and the United Nations, which has refused a peacekeeping force.Ethiopian troops drove out the Union of Islamic Courts, which had established its own fragile gov

NAIROBI (AFP, Mar 26 2008) — Top international aid agencies warned Wednesday that war-scarred Somalia has become too dangerous for its workers to help more than one million civilians living rough, as fresh fighting erupted.Four Somali soldiers and two civilians were killed when Islamist fighters raided the town of Jowhar, near Mogadhishu, officials said.Thirty-nine organisations including Oxfam, World Vision and Save the Children issued their warning of an impending impending humanitarian catastrophe ahead of a UN Security Council debate Thursday on the strife torn Horn of Africa country.The groups first issued a warning about their work in October."Since then, the crisis engulfing Somalia has deteriorated dramatically while access to people in need continues to decrease; 360,000 people

After the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) was driven from power in Somalia by Ethiopian troops 15 months ago, the region, and its ongoing turmoil, largely fell from public view and the the official policy agenda. That is a serious mistake. As this BBC story shows, the radical Islamists have regrouped, have increased their ability to strike across the country, and are more formally allied with al Qaeda than in the past. The most important of the Islamist groups now fighting is al Shabab (meaning "The Lads,"...(read more)

Top international aid agencies warned that the situation in Somalia had become too dangerous for its workers to provide assistance to one million Somali people caught in the ever escalating war that rages in their nation. Thirty-nine organizations issued their warning of an impending humanitarian catastrophe ahead of the United Nations Security Council debate tomorrow. [...]

AP (March 20 2008) - Islamic militants in Somalia welcomed being added to the United States’ list of terrorist organizations, saying they wished only that the designation had come sooner.The State Department announced Tuesday that it added to its list the military wing of the Council of Islamic Courts, called Al Shabab, or the Youth, because it is affiliated with Al Qaeda, according to American officials.“We are happy that the U.S. put us on its list of terrorists, a name given to pure Muslims who are strong and clear in their religious position,” Sheik Muqtar Robow, Al Shabab’s spokesman, said. “We would have been happy to be the first, but now we are unhappy that we are the last,” he said.Mogadishu, the Somali capital, has been engulfed in violence involving movement fighters

A U.S. missile attack on a terrorist allegedly hiding out in the Somalia town of Dobley did considerable damage by killing 3 cows, 1 calf, destroyed a shack and injured six cviilians. The “al-Qaida terrorist,” who was believed to be Saleh Ali Nabhan, escaped unharmed. This was the fourth American attack on Somalia soil since [...]

(TIA) - This is Africa. War left and right. We’re good at one thing - and only one thing - killing our own kind. And killing them in great numbers. Africa - a continent of continuous bloodshed. Where generations are wiped out over night. If you have been paying attention to the news lately, you can [...]

Somalia has had no functioning government since 1991, when rival clan leaders overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other. When an Islamic group took power in parts of the south and the capital last year, the weakened transitional government invited in Ethiopian troops to dislodge the Islamists. The Islamists regrouped with support from Ethiopia's archenemy, Eritrea, and have been fighting an insurgency against the government ever since.Several aid workers have been killed by stray bullets and mortars this year, and the years of fighting have devastated Somalia's infrastructure, making aid delivery difficult and dangerous.Last week, ships coming from Kenya headed not to chaotic Mogadishu but to the nearby port of Merka. All that remains of the disintegrated pier is a series of jagged metal poles biting into the turquoise sea.The rusty wreck of a cargo ship run aground warns the aid ships not to come too close. Instead, a rickety flotilla of small boats sets ou

Millions of people have been affected by the recent conflicts in Somalia. Food aid -and relief aid in general- has been hampered by many operational challenges (see also earlier posts). On several occasions, vessels carrying aid were attacked or hijacked by pirates off the coast (earlier BBC report).As of November, aid vessels are escorted by French war ships. Reaching Somalia is one challenge. Offloading is another, as there are often no ports or ports are not usable. The vessels carrying relief items have to anchor a mile off the coast and transfer their relief cargo onto smaller boats. These are then offloaded by labourers and stacked on the beach. Another crew loads the food onto trucks which transport everything to secure warehouses, before the goods are distributed to the effected population. Not once, but every day....An example of the logistic challenge we are facing in the field. Here are some pictures we received recently. (Full set)Pictures courtesy WFPFor updated humanitari

UN seeks aid for Somalia, Sudan refugees(AP)AP - The U.N. humanitarian chief warned that terrible atrocities and urban warfare were engulfing Somalia's capital and called for a large increase in aid to handle a burgeoning population of refugees fleeing Mogadishu. Rwanda genocide court: life sentence on ex-governor(Reuters) Reuters - A U.N. court trying masterminds ofRwanda's 1994 genocide on Friday sentenced a former provincialgovernor to life imprisonment for his role in the killings,including helping soldiers kill refugees in a church. Germany puts Zimbabwe in spotlight over rights abuses(Reuters) Reuters - German Chancellor Angela Merkelchallenged European and African leaders on Saturday to confronthuman rights abuses in Zimbabwe, putting the country'spresident Robert Mugabe in the spotlight at an EU-Africasummit. Srebrenica survivors, Mia Farrow protest over Darfur(AFP) AFP - Srebrenica massacre surviours joined US actress and activist Mia Farrow in a torch-lightin

Yesterday Secretary Rice, speaking in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, called for more peacekeeping forces to bail out the Ethiopian troops in neighboring Somalia. Ms. Rice, however, has learned little from recent history: Ethiopian troops marched into Somalia a year ago to help Somalia’s UN-backed interim government oust Islamist forces. The US supported the intervention which has proven unpopular, with insurgents continuing to stage attacks. The UN says that one million Somalis have been displaced by the fighting, including 60% of the capital’s residents. The war in Somalia is not some obscure “African tribal conflict” - it is a direct result of international political maneuvering, just like Afghanistan. The similarities between the two countries, in fact, are striking. Both fell apart during the Cold War endgame. Afghanistan, invaded by the Soviets in 1979, has seen near-continuous warfare ever since, with some participants funded by the US. Somalia, after switching it

Film and televisions writers are tentatively back to bargaining with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, resuming talks the Monday after Thanksgiving. Also, CBS news writers, graphic designers, and other staffers have voted to authorize a strike, which may or may not happen, depending on the outcome of the WGA’s resumed talks. In other words, your TV should still be off. While all eyes are on Darfur, the UN has reported that there is a more grave humanitarian crisis in Somalia. The region between Mogadishu and the market town of Afgooye is filled with refugees from the fighting between the interim government and Islamists. It has less aid workers and is getting much less money than the Darfur region, while being bloodier and more dire. Certainly shows that crises like the one in Darfur are not isolated problems. The JFA Institute has released a report outlining the rise of the prison population since 1970 in the US. It seems that, while prison populatio

This week - new developments in two stories we reported on last year.In August, a federal judge tried to stop what the Bush administration calls the Terrorist Surveillance Program. A presidential order let the National Security Agency read e-mails and listen to calls to or from al-Qaida suspects in the United States without a court order.The judge in Detroit said the program violated rights of free speech and privacy. She ruled it unconstitutional and in violation of a federal intelligence law.In October, an appeals court said the government could continue the program while it appealed the ruling.But this week the administration said it has ended the use of surveillance without court approval. It says the program now operates under rules prepared by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.Democrats, newly in control of Congress, praised the move but said it should have happened sooner. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said there are still questions about exactly how the program wil

I’ve been working on a case study of the anarchist “state” of Somalia for a couple of months now. But have been unable to work it all into a cohesive whole. There’s just too much data from too many sources to water it all down to a single post. At the same time, I don’t want to just give you a bunch of links to academic papers that are difficult to sift through. If you wanted to read those papers you likely already would have done so. It’s my “job” to make you interested enough to read (or at least skim) them for yourself by giving you the highlights. So, in the intereste of actually moving things forward I’ve decided to break up the case study of Somalia’s current, ongoing, anarchy into several large “chunks” focusing on different areas. How many? I have no idea. But everything’s gotta start somewhere, so I’m going to start with a brief history of Somalia- Egyptians, Romans, and Byzantines al

On yesterday's America’s Newsroom on Fox, Bill Hemmer asked me if Somalia was the next battleground in the war on terror, in re to a newly release video of an American known as Abu Mansour who is helping train the Somali mujahidin aligned with al-Qaeda. I could only respond honestly: No, it likely will be overshadowed by Iraq for years to come. But Somalia has been a smoldering battlefield since the early 1990s, as we all recall the basis for "Black Hawk Down." On October 3 and 4, 1993, two UH-60...(read more)

Sixteen years after the established government fell in Somalia, the East African nation just lurches from one disaster to another, some man-made, some natural, each one deepening the humanitarian crisis.Last year marked more than six years of a record-breaking drought, followed by renewed fighting as the Islamic Courts Union sought to oust feuding clan warlords, which they did, establishing a semblance of order in the unruly capital and most of the country for the first time in a decade and a half. Then the drought ended—only to be replaced by devastating floods, cutting off much of the population from aid deliveries. And by the end of 2006, warfare resumed, with Ethiopia, encouraged by the United States, invading Somalia to oust the Islamic Courts, which were a little too pro-Al Qaeda for U.S. tastes, and prop up the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), an amalgamation of former warlords with little popular support in Somalia. (full article)Picture courtesy Irinnews.org

by Afyare Abdi ElmiTuesday, May 01, 2007THE UNITED Nations' Office for Coordinating Humanitarian Affairs in Somalia reported that the recent clashes between Ethiopian troops and Somali resistance groups killed more than 1,000 civilians and displaced more than 350,000 residents of Mogadishu. The European Union has reacted to this carnage and it is investigating whether war crimes were committed by the Ethiopian forces and Somali government militias. The EU argues that forces intentionally targeted civilian areas.The United States, however, is on a different page. When the Union of Islamic Courts defeated the US-backed warlords, the Bush administration -- using the war on terrorism as justiciation -- supported the Ethiopian occupation, arguing that the Islamists were an emerging threat to the US interests.But approaching the complex and multilayered Somali conflict in this simplistic way and linking it to the war on terror was a mistake.The United States inadvertently stepped into a loc

The United Nations has been asked by the Security Council to come up with plans for UN peacekeepers in Somalia by the middle of June if the members decide that the current conditions will require this. Since February over 350,000 people have left Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, but the council says that they are still a ways away from authorizing military action in the African nation. In a statement the UN Security Council asked the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to start “appropriate contingency planning for a possible United Nations mission, to be deployed if the Security Council decided to authorize such a mission.” Since the fall of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 Somalia has been in constant chaos.  The Islamist militia took over Mogadishu last year but over the New Year the interim government of President Abdullahi Yusuf, with the support of Ethiopian troops, took control.  Since then there has been constant battling between the Ethiopian/Somali troops a

Perchè nessuno parla della guerra in Somalia? Forse perchè nè l'Italia nè gli Usa si interessano al Corno d'Africa, fatto sempre più di polvere e miseria, lacrime e sangue. Bè in Somalia c'è una guerra, e anche se non si vede mai (o quasi) in tv è una guerra vera che si combatte con mitragliatori, corri armati e missili. Da un parte c'è il governo ad interim del presidente Abdullahi Yusuf (appoggiato dai soldati etiopi e sostenuto dai peacekeepers dell'Unione Africana), dall'altra le milizie antigovernative delle Corti islamiche. In Somalia la normalità non c'è, e non solo perchè questo Paese non ha un governo da 16 anni, ma perchè la gente muore ammazzata mentre fa le cose più semplici. Una decina di giorni fa, per esempio, alcuni missili hanno colpito un affollato mercato. Già  a fine marzo le le vittime civili erano state

The Jerusalem Post: Somalia violence rages on despite UN call for peaceExcerpt:"Artillery shells and mortars rained down on Mogadishu Tuesday after a week of raging battles, despite a plea by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to end the violence that local groups say has left nearly 300 people dead.Islamic insurgents clashed with allied Ethiopian and Somali government forces, using mortars and rocket propelled grenades against tanks and artillery positions in the north of the battle-scarred coastal city."http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1177251159583&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFullAlex

Mogadishu/Nairobi, April 22 (DPA) At least 200 people have been killed in five days of fighting in the Somali capital Mogadishu, reports said Sunday. Corpses remained strewn in the streets, many of them decapitated and decomposing, and the sounds of gun battles and mortar shelling rocked the seaside capital, just days after the UN warned of a looming humanitarian crisis. At least 500 people have been wounded in this week’s flare-up. “My brother was on his cell phone talking with me. He and other people were trying to leave the village as two rockets landed at their place. They are all dead,” Ahmed Ulusow, a father of six, told Somali news agency Shabelle. “The number of people who were wounded by stray bullets and explosions of rockets are increasingly being admitted and the hospital is overwhelmingly full because there are more patients than the hospital can manage,” director of Medina hospital Dahir Dhere told journalists. More than 320,000 Mogadishu re

The insurgency in Somalia continues to gain strength as attacks have increased throughout the country, and fighting has returned to Mogadishu. A Hawiye clan-brokered ceasefire collapsed on Wednesday of last week in the face of clashes between Ethiopian troops and insurgent forces aligned with the fundamentalist Islamic Courts Union (ICU). The situation has become so [...]

The situation in Somalia has grown markedly worse over the past week as the Islamic Courts Union’s (ICU) insurgency gains steam — so bad, in fact, that the Christian Science Monitor claims that the Somalis “haven’t seen fighting this intense since the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.” The fighting has produced mass [...]

The Muslim militants in Somalia are still savaging the country and attacking the Ethiopian army trying to bring them down:MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - An Ethiopian helicopter attacking insurgent positions in Somalia's capital was shot down Friday as government and allied troops battled hundreds of gunmen in the streets, witnesses said.Government soldiers and troops from neighboring Ethiopia, who are in Somalia to protect the fragile government, were under a severe attack for a second day as they tried to quash a growing insurgency by Islamic militants.[...]An Associated Press reporter said an anti-aircraft missile hit the helicopter.The number of casualties was not immediately clear. On Thursday, fighting killed at least 10 people - but it was likely that many more had died. Hospitals were overwhelmed with the wounded and corpses were scattered in the streets. Doctors trying to tally the numbers said up to 30 people may have died.Dahir Mohamed, a nurse with Medina hospital, said 92 wound

A starboard view of the Arleigh Burke Class Guided Missile Destroyer, USS OKANE (DDG 77) underway in the Indian Ocean (IOC) conducting Maritime Security Operations (MSO)off the coast of Somalia in support of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). (Released to Public)DoD photo by: PH1 (SW) AARON ANSAROV, USN Date Shot: 27 Apr 2005 High Resolution ImageU.S. Working With Countries in Horn of Africa to Go After al Qaeda, By Kathleen T. Rhem. American Forces Press ServiceWASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2007 - The United States will track down al Qaeda operatives wherever they try to find safe haven, including in the Horn of Africa, a senior Defense Department official said today."We have, for some time, been concerned about al Qaeda operating in that region, and that's why we're working with countries throughout that (area of responsibility) to identify track, seek, capture and, if necessary, kill al Qaeda working, taking safe haven, operating in that region," Bryan Whitman, deputy assistant de

War On Terror More Than Iraq While politics are played concerning Iraq, another terror front seems to be ignored. This emergin terror front is in Somalia: U.S. special operations forces are in Somalia hunting suspected al-Qaida fighters, but Pentagon officials dismissed the idea they are planning to send any large number of ground troops to the African nation. U.S. and Somali officials said yesterday a small American team has been providing military advice to Ethiopian and Somali forces on the ground. The officials provided little detail and spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. The U.S. forces entered Somalia with Ethiopian forces late last month when Ethiopians launched their attack against the Islamic movement said to be sheltering al-Qaida figures, one of the officials said. The small teams of special operations forces serving as liaison officers, advisers and trainers are a different matter, the officials said. They declined t

The U.S. 5th Fleet moved the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower into the waters off Somalia in an effort to capture al Qaeda terrorists attempting to flee the country. High Resolution ImageUnited Nations-recognized Somali government officials said the strikes were aimed at al Qaeda terrorists who planned the attacks against the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.The Ethiopian military entered Somalia Dec. 24 with the mission of neutralizing the Council of Islamic Courts, a Muslim extremist group that took power in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. The Ethiopian forces took the capital in 10 days and terrorists and their sympathizers allegedly moved south toward the border with Kenya to escape.More U.S. ships are moving in to the waters off Somalia to reinforce the maritime interdiction effort there. "Due to rapidly developing events in Somalia, U.S. Central Command has tasked USS Dwight D. Eisenhower to join USS Bunker Hill, USS Ramage, USS Anzio and USS Ashland (Prison

What Will Be The Cost? Somalian Transitional PresidentSays U.S. Was In The Right After the United States launched air strikes on suspected al Qaeda fighters in Somalia, experts debated to what extent the United States should get involved militarily in the anarchic country embroiled in a years-long civil war. "Nothing you do militarily comes without a political cost," said Anthony Cordesman, an expert on terrorism and the U.S. military at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "But if you don't act because of the risk of hostile political perception, you're going to create a far worse future." Other experts questioned whether the priority for the United States in Somalia right now should be trying to hunt down suspected terrorists Defending the air strikes, President Abdullahi Yusuf, head of Somalia's transitional government, told journalists in Mogadishu Tuesday that the United States "has a right to bombard terrorist suspects who attacked its emb

Aircraft attack al Qaeda haven, Air Force AC-130 gunships struck al Qaeda targets in Somalia Jan. 8, news sources reported last night. Press reports said the AC-130 attacks hit an area called Ras Kamboni, a heavily forested area near the Kenyan border. The area is allegedly a terror training base. The AC-130 gunship's primary missions are close-air support, air interdiction and force protection. (U.S. Air Force photo) Download Full Image > The AC-130H Spectre gunship's primary missions are close air support, air interdiction and armed reconnaissance. Other missions include perimeter and point defense, escort, High Resolution Imagelanding, drop and extraction zone support, forward air control, limited command and control, and combat search and rescue. These heavily armed aircraft incorporate side-firing weapons integrated with sophisticated sensor, navigation and fire control systems to provide surgical firepower or area saturation during extended periods, at night and in adverse wea

US gun ships attacked suspeted Al Queda operatives in Somalia. The suspects were those thought to order the attacks on US Embassies in Africa. U.S. Hits Al Qaeda In Somalia New Air Strikes Reported As Forces Target 1998 Embassy Bombing...

Now Fighting Islamic FightersOn African ContinentAn official and a witness say there have been at least two US airstrikes on different locations against terror targets in Somalia.And Somalia's president says the United States has the right to carry out airstrikes against al-Qaida suspects in his country.Officials say the targets were al-Qaida figures wanted for the bombings of two US embassies in Africa in 1998, killing more than 250 people.A Somali government spokesman says there were "a lot" of casualties but exact numbers aren't known. He says most of the victims were Islamic fighters. But witnesses say at least four civilians were killed. One man told The Associated Press that his four-year-old son was among them.Read Article... Africa War Terrorism Islam

A video from Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of Al Qaeda’s leaders, is calling on Muslims around the Middle East to attack the Ethiopian forces in Somalia.  In the video Ayman tells the Muslims to use mines, ambushes and suicide attacks during the jihad against Somalia, and says to continue these attacks until “you rend and eat your prey as the lion does with his prey.” Zawahiri says that Somalia Muslims will need men, money and experience in order to defeat the Ethiopian forces.  Zawahiri even calls the Ethiopian forces “slaves of America”.  He also mentions how in the 1992 - 1994 US military campaign in Somalia the US was defeated, and since, according to Zawahiri, the US military is weak from the current war in Iraq and Afghanistan they should be relatively weak. Toward the end of the video Zawahiri also claims they will win the war in both Afghanistan and Iraq against the United States, but that the people need to be patient and hold steadfast.  I am sure t

Bill Roggio (via Hot Air) reports that Ethiopia has routed the Mogadishu. As Bryan says here: There should be no allowance for any cease-fire talks until the Islamists are well and truly crushed. Keep the UN and the Arab League as far from this fight as possible until it's truly finished. The Ethiopians and the transitional Somali government forces, fighting together against the Islamists in spite of a history of war between Ethiopia and Somalia, should not make the same mistake Israel and the US have made in Lebanon and Iraq and Afghanistan. They should win the fight outright and dictate terms to the surviving Islamists. Foreign fighters should either be imprisoned and tried for their crimes or, well, imprisoned and tried for their crimes. Anything less, and the Islamists will go to ground and come back with an insurgency in a few months or a year.Absolutely correct. Ethiopia needs to set an important example in the fight against Islamofascism by bringing down the Mogadishu right to

While it's good that they're slaying scum, they may be working on it while facing opposition. From the New York Times (Hat tip: Hot Air):Though western diplomats had been urging Ethiopia to use restraint, Ethiopia's attacks today did not come as a surprise. The question now seems to be if Ethiopia will go into Mogadishu and try to finish off the Islamist military, which many fear could spur a long and ugly insurgency, or simply deal them enough of a blow to force them back to the negotiating table with the transitional government. Ethiopia's prime minister recently told American officials that he could wipe out the Islamists "in one to two weeks"What complicates the issue is the presence of other foreign troops inside Somalia and the rising potential for Somalia's neighbors to be dragged in. United Nations officials estimate that there are several thousand soldiers from Eritrea, Ethiopia's arch-enemy, fighting for the Islamists, along with a growing number of Muslim merc

Ethiopia launched a bombing raid on Mogadishu International Airport — the headquarters of the Islamic movement aimed at toppling the internationally recognized government of Somalia. Ethiopia’s prime minister announced Sunday night that his country was “forced to enter a war” with Somalia’s Council of Islamic Courts after the group declared holy war on Ethiopia. The Bush administration — bogged down in Iraq and, increasingly, in Afghanistan — cannot (and probably wouldn’t) do anything. According to U.S. officials, the Islamic militants battling for control of Somalia have ties to Al-Qaeda. Post-9/11, the Bush administration abandoned Afghanistan and completely neglected Somalia — the real fronts in the “War on Terror” — for his ill-conceived war. (Only to create a terrorist state in Iraq.) National insecurity brought to you by the Bush White House. Meanwhile, back in Somalia: Major fighting broke out Tuesday night.

The Islamic Courts in Mogadishu go one step further into madness. Loud speakers wail out the newest law - "Pray 5 times a day or be beheaded". Click for Yahoo News articleAnd it's really nice to hear Mr. Ahmad Al-Akhras, the Vice chairman of the National Council on American-Islamic Relations of Columbus, Ohio, state that this is a "positive change". I think that Mr. Al-Akhras should go live in Mogadishu since he shares those values. Click for previous Somalia post

Found this story in the Metro today on my way to work, and then went onto CBS News to get the rest of the story. Anyway some pretty wild stuff going on, here's the headline and quotes from the story:U.S. Hits Al Qaeda In SomaliaNew Air Strikes Reported As Forces Target 1998 Embassy Bombing SuspectsA U.S. air strike hit targets in southern Somalia where Islamic militants were believed to be sheltering suspects in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies, Somali officials and witnesses said Tuesday. Many people were reported killed.Monday's attack was the first overt military action by the U.S. in Somalia since the 1990s and the legacy of a botched intervention — known as "Black Hawk Down" — that left 18 U.S. servicemen dead.Helicopter gunships launched new attacks Tuesday near the scene of the U.S. air strike, although it was not clear if they were American or Ethiopian aircraft, and it was not known if there were any casualties....U.S. warships have been seeking to capture al Qaed