Entire Horn of Africa on Verge of War
The U.N. seems to be avoiding the situation in Somalia. A full scale war in Somalia will most certainly pull in the entire Horn of Africa with Eritrea supporting the Islamists and Ethiopia’s Christian government supporting Somalia.
Even though I view the situation in Mogadishu with a bit of schadenfreude, I am nevertheless of the opinion that NATO forces need to be deployed there to stabilize Somalia’s tenuous situation and weed out Al Qaeda operatives.
(White Castle, err, uhm, Mosque in Mogadishu)
Somali premier vows to take Mogadishu from Islamists
Ali Musa Abdi
AFP – Mideast News
November 27, 2006
NAIROBI — Somalia’s Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi vowed Monday that his government, backed by Ethiopia, would take Mogadishu from powerful Islamists now controlling the city, fueling fears of all-out war.
With forces loyal to his weak administration and Ethiopian soldiers reinforcing the government seat of Baidoa and the Islamists pouring troops into frontline positions, Gedi said that he had an obligation to act.
“The Somali government is heading to Mogadishu,” he told reporters in the Kenyan capital where he was en route to an African Union meeting in Nigeria. “Any effort to try to stop it from visiting its capital will be futile,” Gedi said. “That will be a recipe for new conflict and those who act against the government will be responsible for the consequences.”
“We are not asking the Islamists if we can come or not, we are the transitional government of Somalia and it’s our obligation to do so,” he said.
Gedi gave no timeframe for the push on Mogadishu, which the Islamists seized from warlords in June after months of fierce fighting, but military build-ups around Baidoa have mounted in recent weeks since the failure of peace talks.
As tensions rise, speculation abounds that full-scale war is imminent, despite severe flooding that has wiped out roads and bridges in many areas where fighting would be likely.
Many diplomats and regional security experts fear all-out war in Somalia could engulf the Horn of Africa in conflict, drawing in Ethiopia, which backs the government, and its arch-foe Eritrea, accused of supporting the Islamists.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said last week that he had completed preparations for war with the Islamists and stressed at the weekend that his country would not wait for approval from anyone to attack.
Mainly Christian Ethiopia, with a large and potentially restive Muslim minority, is wary of the rise on its border of the Islamists who have declared holy war on Ethiopian troops in Somalia protecting the government.
Meles has admitted to sending military advisors and trainers to help the Somali administration but denies numerous witness accounts of having deployed thousands of combat troops, aircraft, and heavy military equipment.
Asked to comment on the Ethiopian presence in and around Baidoa, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu, Gedi replied simply: “We were not the first ones to invite people in.”
The comment was a reference to allegations from UN arms experts and others that the Islamists are receiving weapons and military support from seven, mainly Arab, countries as well as Lebanon’s radical Hezbollah movement.
Meanwhile, three nations – Ethiopia, Uganda, and Yemen – are reportedly backing the Somali government, according to a UN-commissioned report.
Gedi’s government and the United States accuse some Somali Islamists of links with terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, and believe that they are harboring suspects in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
“The Islamists invited the foreign destabilization, which will undermine not only the peace in Somalia, but across the region,” Gedi said, claiming that fighters from Eritrea, Pakistan, and Afghanistan were among those in the country.
“It will be the Islamists’ responsibility if war erupts in Somalia because of the participation of foreigners,” he said.
Somalia has been without a functioning central authority since the 1991 ousting of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and the two-year-old transitional government has been unable to assert control.
