In other news...

Ethiopian jets bomb Mogadishu airport

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 13 minutes ago



MOGADISHU, Somalia - Ethiopian fighter jets bombed Mogadishu International Airport in the middle of Somalia's capital on Monday, witnesses said, in the first direct attack on the headquarters of an Islamic movement attempting to wrest power from the internationally recognized government.

An Associated Press reporter who arrived shortly after the strike saw one wounded woman taken away. There were reports of two people killed. The runway and one building used by the Islamic forces were damaged. Islamic officials were not immediately available for comment.

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 Russian-made jets swept low over the capital at midmorning, dropping two bombs on Somalia's main airport, which just recently reopened after the Islamic takeover of Mogadishu.

Somali troops, backed by Ethiopian soldiers, captured a key border town early Monday and residents celebrated as government soldiers moved through the town and headed south in pursuit of fleeing Islamic militiamen, a Somali officer said.

Islamic fighters left the town of Belet Weyne, on the Somali-Ethiopian border along the Shabelle river, overnight after Ethiopian fighter jets bombed Islamic positions Sunday, residents said.

Col. Abdi Yusuf Ahmed, a Somali government army commander, told The Associated Press that his forces entered Belet Weyne early Monday without a shot fired. He held up his telephone and a reporter could hear street celebrations.

Heavy artillery and mortar fire continued to echo through the main government town of Baidoa on Monday, said Mohammed Sheik Ali, a resident reached by telephone. Government and Ethiopian troops were attempting to push back Islamic forces just 12 miles south of Baidoa.

Sunday marked the first time Ethiopia has acknowledged that its troops are fighting in Somalia, though witnesses had been reporting their presence for weeks. Ethiopia supports Somalia's U.N.-backed government, which has been losing ground to the Islamists since June.

"Our defense force has been forced to enter a war to defend against the attacks from extremists and anti-Ethiopian forces and to protect the sovereignty of the land," Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said in a television address Sunday night. "Our intention is to win this war as soon as possible."

Ethiopia, a largely Christian nation that fears the emergence of a neighboring Islamic state, dropped bombs on several towns held by the Council of Islamic Courts and its soldiers used artillery and tanks elsewhere. No reliable casualty reports were immediately available.

Experts fear the conflict in Somalia could engulf the already volatile Horn of Africa. A recent U.N. report said 10 countries have been illegally supplying arms and equipment to both sides of the conflict and using Somalia as a proxy battlefield.

Residents living along Somalia's coast have seen hundreds of foreign Islamic fighters entering the country to answer calls by religious leaders to wage a holy war against Ethiopia.

The Islamic group's strict and often severe interpretation of Islam raises memories of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, which was ousted by a U.S.-led campaign for harboring Osama bin Laden. The U.S. government says four al-Qaida leaders, believed to be behind the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, have become leaders in Somalia's Islamic militia.

Major fighting broke out Tuesday night. On Sunday, Ethiopian forces fought alongside secular Somali soldiers in Dinsoor, Belet Weyne, Bandiradley and Bur Haqaba, officials said.

Ethiopia and Somalia have fought two wars over their disputed border in the past 45 years, and Islamic court leaders have repeatedly said they want to incorporate ethnic Somalis living in eastern Ethiopia, northeastern Kenya and Djibouti into a Greater Somalia.

Thousands of Somalis have fled their homes as troops loyal to the two-year-old interim administration fought Islamic fighters who had advanced on Baidoa, about 140 miles northwest of Mogadishu.

Government officials and Islamic militiamen have said hundreds of people have been killed in clashes since Tuesday, but the claims could not be independently confirmed. Aid groups put the death toll in the dozens.

Somalia has not had an effective government since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, plunging the country into chaos. The government was formed two years ago with the help of the United Nations, but has failed to assert any real control.

I'm suprised at the lack of coverage on this. And also, where is the Bush Admin. on this? You have Islamic terrorists trying to overthrow a democratic government in Somalia. I just don't understand why we havent done anything to help Ethiopia or Somalia.



Hello, maybe we should nip this in the bud?

There not Islamic terrorists. They are just people that want Somalia run under Sharia'a law. It's a union of Islamic courts, and each court is completely different from the next. All of them have different varying degrees of extremism. Some are no different than here in Djibouti. Some, particularly some near Moqdishu, are exactly like the Taliban. No khat, no cigarettes, don't go to the beach, movie theatres have been shut down, only Islamic music can be listened to, and women must be in a hijab.

Why haven't we done anything to help Somalia and Ethiopia? Well, first of all, we've done an ass ton to help Ethiopia. That's why I'm where I am. We've done a lot for Ethiopia, and in my opinion, it probably bight us in the ass. Ethiopia is Christian, and we've been helping them in all kinds of regards as of late. This is only going to play into the ploy of Islamists fighting a war of religion. We are viewed as allies of Ethiopia.

Why haven't we done anything to help Somalia? I dunno. Ask the UN. When major general Ghormley was in charge of this base we were trying to at least get into Somaliland and Puntland. It's not Bush prohibiting us, nor senior military leadership. It is the international community that has prevented us from doing more in the northern part of Somalia. The IC refuses to recognize both Puntland and Somaliland as independent nations. So, even though the govenrments of these two autonomous states have asked us for their help, international beauracracy has kept us out of those places.

Why aren't we in Sudan? Why aren't we in Somalia? Why aren't we in Eritrea? It's the UN my friend. Not Bush dropping the ball.

Why aren't we hearing about this in America? Why isn't this news? Thousands of people died yesterday in Somalia. More people died yesterday than will die in a month, maybe two months, maybe three months in Iraq. Why does it not make news? I dunno. Draw your own conclusions, because the same thing happening 15 years ago was huge news when Clinton was running the show.

It's not in the news because what has happened in Somalia today, is what we will be facing in Iraq in the future if we approach Iraq the same way we did Somalia. All the reasons to stay in Iraq, are exemplified by what's happened in Somalia.

this is a pretty big story. i can tell you fox and msnbc covered it. not sure about cnn.

Does this affect you, LittleWing?

Very much so.

I went out to town today. Snapped a few pictures (See my latest Release post *cough*), and even there I noticed the effects. Djiboutiville was...I guess the best way to describe it is...very pensive. Now, normally everyone casually listens to BBC Somali in the afternoon, today, it was more important than religion. Every male in the city was huddled around a radio. Huge groups, intently focused, this war is everything.

Normally out in the city, you see police and only police. Today there were people with AK's. The Gendarmarie were out in force. Djiboutian Air Force and Djiboutian Army were scattered just about everywhere. I picked up on it with the police yesterday when I was out, but I hadn't heard the news, now I understand.

Now there is a no alcohol policy in effect out in town. So no more three beers. Liberty is secured at 8PM now instead of 11:30PM. And all liberty passes to Kenya and Ethiopia are cancelled. Which...well...pretty much fucks me, because I was planning on a week in Addis Ababa the last week of January.

In my opinion, this is the straw that will break the camels back. This base, or targets in the city, will be attacked within a year now. It's gonna happen.

I will also say this. This is a LOT bigger than what it is in the papers. The tensions extend so far in the region. If the UIC continues it's ego trip and is not forced to the bargaining table within days, there's gonna be massive blood shed. Millions will lose their lives. Make no mistake about this, this is a Holy War, and it's gonna be pushed as a Holy War from the Islamists side, and will usher in global fighters. There's already massive problems, and the history between the two nations is downplayed, and not expressed gravely enough in the article. There's long been bad blood over the Ogaden region of Ethiopia.

I mean, we think Iraq is bad. But this will quickly eclipse the magnitude of human suffering there. The Islamists just don't care about dying, and the Ethiopians have no qualms about waging total warfare and could give two shits about fighting a "clean" war.

My bet...millions will die from this, from both the war, and the famine it will create. And it will probably be worse than what happened in the 90's.

How are they not Islamic terrorists if four al-qaeda leaders are in the country? I realize their are different groups under this council's umbrella, but with these four in the country couldn't they bring everyone under their umbrella? They must have a network of people for money and weapons already firmly established in Africa if they are indeed the same people behind the embassy bombings.

LittleWing, here's hoping your predictions don't come true and that you and your unit stay safe.

Sounds like a terrible trajedy is starting occur, but what can be done? We can't effect anything in Darfur and we've known about that for years!

Excuse my ignornace, but where these two nations created by the European colonial powers or are the borders older than that? Thinking about the ME and Africa, I often wonder if the UN should just have a big border redrawing party and try to make things better.

I'm pretty sure that Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that was never colonized. At different points in history it has enjoyed the support of various western powers such as Italy, Russia, the US, and even Mexico if you can believe that, but it's always maintained independence.

Somalia was governed by Italy and Britain, with Djibouti (used to be apart of Greater Somalia) being governed by the French. I would fathom a guess that the straight part of the border between Somalia and Ethiopia was created by the west though. I'm not completely knowledgable on why the border is the way it is.

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By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 26 minutes ago



MOGADISHU, Somalia - Somalia government soldiers, joined by troops from neighboring Ethiopia, advanced toward Somalia's capital Tuesday as Islamic fighters dug in and promised a "new phase" in the war — a chilling pronouncement from a movement that has threatened suicide attacks.

Somalia called on the Council of Islamic Courts militias, bloodied by a week of artillery and mortar attacks, to surrender and promised amnesty if they lay down their weapons, government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said.

A U.N. official, meanwhile, said Tuesday that Ethiopian-backed government troops were advancing on Mogadishu, the capital, from two directions and facing stiff resistance.

Francois Lonseny Fall, the top U.N. envoy to Somalia, also said 35,000 Somalis had crossed into neighboring Kenya to escape the fighting, which forced the U.N. to suspend aid delivery to two million Somalis.

As many as 1,000 people may have been killed and 3,000 wounded in the fighting, many of them foreign radicals, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said.

Meles said about 3,000 to 4,000 Ethiopian forces, which entered Somalia on Saturday, may soon wrap up their offensive against the Islamic militias that until recent days controlled most of southern part of the country.

"As soon as we have accomplished our mission — and about half of our mission is done, and the rest shouldn't take long — we'll be out," Meles told reporters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

The U.N. envoy, Fall, called the fighting "disastrous" for the Somalian people and asked the Security Council to call for an immediate cease-fire.

The council took no immediate action on a draft presidential statement circulated by Qatar calling for a cease-fire and withdrawal of foreign forces, specifying Ethiopian troops. The United States and several other nations objected to singling out Ethiopia and the call for a truce, saying talks and a political agreement are needed for stability before foreign forces can leave. The council agreed to continue discussions Wednesday.

A U.S. State Department spokesman in Washington appeared to endorse Ethiopia's military action, saying it had "genuine security concerns" about the growth of powerful Islamic militias next door.

The spokesman, Gonzalo Gallegos, said he had no information on whether the U.S., which is concerned about the militia's ties to foreign Islamic militants, was aiding the Ethiopian military with supplies.

Ethiopia sent fighter jets streaking deep into militia-held areas Sunday to help Somalia's U.N.-recognized government push back the Islamic militias. Ethiopia bombed the country's two main airports and helped government forces capture several villages.

Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a top leader of the Islamic group, accused Ethiopian troops of massacring 50 civilians in the central town of Cadado. Ethiopian officials were not immediately available to respond.

Ahmed said his fighters are in tactical retreat in the face of superior Ethiopian firepower. But the military struggle has just begun, he added.

"The war is entering a new phase," Ahmed said from Mogadishu, the capital. "We will fight Ethiopia for a long, long time and we expect the war to go everyplace."

Ahmed declined to elaborate, but some Islamic leaders have threatened a guerrilla war to include suicide bombings in Addis Ababa.

Ismael Mohamoud Hurreh, Somalia's foreign minister, said Tuesday that the government's small military force has been training for this offensive for five months.

"We will hold our line very, very well, don't worry about that," Hurreh told reporters in Nairobi, Kenya.

Experts fear the conflict in Somalia could engulf the region. Islamic courts leaders have repeatedly said they want to incorporate ethnic Somalis living in eastern Ethiopia, northeastern Kenya and Djibouti into a Greater Somalia.

For months, foreign Islamic radicals — including Pakistanis, Arabs and Chechens — have been trickling into Somalia to fight on behalf of the Islamic movement. According to a U.N. report in October, Eritrea — Ethiopia's neighbor and longtime adversary — has dispatched 2,000 soldiers to Somalia to fight against the Ethiopian-backed central government.

Ethiopia's Meles said his goal is not to defeat the militias but severely damage their military power — and allow both sides to return to peace talks on an even footing.

"The rank and file of the Islamic Courts militia is not a threat to Ethiopia," he said Tuesday. "Once they return to their bases, we will leave them alone."

Ethiopian troops will not enter Mogadishu, he said. Instead, he said, Somali forces would encircle the city to contain the militias that control it.

Any effort by the Somali government or Ethiopia to take the capital risks a disaster similar to the U.S. intervention in Somalia in 1992.

That U.N.-sponsored mission ended in 1993, after Somali militiamen shot down a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter. Eighteen American servicemen were killed in the crash and vicious street fighting that preceded and followed, made famous in the book and movie "Black Hawk Down."

Somalia has not had an effective government since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, pushing the country into anarchy.

Two years ago, the United Nations helped set up a central government for the arid, impoverished nation on the Horn of Africa. But until the past week, it had little influence outside of its seat in the city of Baidoa, about 140 northwest of Mogadishu.

The country was largely under the control of warlords until this past summer, when the Islamic militia movement pushed them aside.

One critical issue is whether the central government can win the support of Somalis. Many resent Ethiopia's intervention because the countries have fought two wars over their disputed border in the past 45 years.

Hurreh, the Somali foreign minister, said Somalis will embrace the fall of the Islamic militias. Their severe interpretation of Islam is reminiscent, to some, of Afghanistan's Taliban regime — ousted by a U.S.-led campaign in 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden.

"A lot of people in Mogadishu will be very happy to chew some qat and have the Islamic courts out of their way," Hurreh said, referring to the narcotic leaf banned by many of the Islamic

I don't know if this was covered in the article you posted because I didn't read it (too tired), but Ethiopia was sort of an Italian colony for about five years in the run up to and during WWII. Something like 36-41 or so. That was more of an occupation, though, and Ethiopia is officially one of the longest running independent states on the planet at something like 5,000 years. But it really depends on your definition of colonialism. It's never been ruled by political colonialism, but it's Christian for a reason.

The whole area was contested in WWII and the Italians and especially the British fought a great deal over it. Then the Russians came in around the 70s and really complicated things. And none are really democratic in any real sense, unless the definition only requires elections.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia#Religion

A small ancient group of Jews, the Beta Israel, live in northwestern Ethiopia, though most have emigrated to Israel in the last decades of the twentieth century as part of the rescue missions undertaken by the Israeli government, Operation Moses and Operation Solomon.

Sometimes Christianity in Africa is thought of as a European import that arrived with colonialism, but this is not the case with Ethiopia. The Kingdom of Aksum was one of the first nations to officially adopt Christianity, when St. Frumentius of Tyre, called Fremnatos or Abba Selama ("Father of Peace") in Ethiopia, converted King Ezana during the fourth century AD. Many believe that the Gospel had entered Ethiopia even earlier, with the royal official described as being baptised by Philip the Evangelist in chapter nine of the Acts of the Apostles.

They say that the Jews in Ethiopia were the original Jews from the Exudos. I guess the Jews of Ethiopia really aren't treated all to well in Israel either.

They say that the arc of the covenant is in Ethiopia, as well as Noah's ark and many other old, old Jewish and Christian relics.

The ark of the covenant is in Aksum, and it's been there since before the destruction of the First Temple. I believe this. Queen of Sheba (or her people) took it home with them.

Yup. It's in Axum. Once I get out of this ridiculous uniform and can do some traveling I plan on going by car to Axum, Harar, and some of the other ancient religious shrines in Ethiopia.

Read The Sign and the Seal.