Time has come for India to assert herself yet again and recognize diplomatically the break-away Republic of Somaliland by Dr. Adityanjee » The Somaliland Globe

Time has come for India to assert herself yet again and recognize diplomatically the break-away Republic of Somaliland by Dr. Adityanjee » The Somaliland Globe

Xeer Ilaaliyaha Guud ee Qaranka oo soo saaray Amar uu ku Joojinayo Diiwaan gelinta Warbaahinta Cusub ee Warageysyadda iyo TV-yada

Monday, November 28th, 2011

“Waxa aanu joojinay Diiwaan gelinta Saxaafadda ilaa inta laga helayo ama wax ka bedel lagu samaynayo Xeerka Saxaafadda”Xeer Ilaaliyaha Guud ee Qaranka\
Talaabadani waxay Caqabad ku noqonaysaa Dastuurka Qaranka, Xeerarka Doorashooyinka, Ururada/Axsaabta Siyaasadda iyo Xoriyatul qawlka

Hargeysa(Waaheen) Xeer ilaaliyaha Guud ee Qaranka Somaliland Xasan Axmed Aadan ayaa 23/11/2011 soo saaray qoraal Amar ah oo uu ku joojinayo Diiwaan gelinta Warbaahinta Cusub ee doonaysa inay si sharci ah u hesho Ruqsada uu sharcigu u jideeyay hadii ay u baahdaan Muwaadiniinta Somaliland inay furtaan Hay’adda Warbaahineed.

Qoraalkan oo uu Xeer ilaaliyuhu si gaar ah ugu socodsiiyay Wasiirkla Wasaaradda Warfaafinta isla markaana uu Ogeysiiyay Wasiirka Wasaaradda Madaxtooyadda Somaliland waxa uu si cad u joojiyay in aanu Diiwaan gelin u samayn doonin Warbaahin danbe haddii ay tahay Wargeys ama Telefishan ilaa wax ka bede lagu sameeyo Xeerka Saxaafadda Somaliland oo ah dhaqan gal.

Sidoo kale qoraalka waxa uu ku cadeeyay in Xeerka Saxaafadda ee ay Golayaashu Ansixiyeen Madaxweynuhuna uu saxeexay in uu yahay mid aan dhamaystirnayn isla markaana aan ka turjumayn Saxaafadda oo dhan .


Waxa kale oo uu Wasiirka Wasaaradda Warfaafinta oo ah Hay’adda u xil saaran Warbaahinta Qaranka isla markaana u soo gudbisa Ogolaanshaha Hay’addaha warbaahineed Xeer Ilaalinta uu u sheegay hay’addaha ay u soo gudbiyeen si uu u Diiwaan galiayaa aanay buuxin shuruudaha iyo Aqoonta uu ku xidhayo Xeerka Saxaafaddu sidaasi daraadeed aanay waafaqsanayn Xeerkaasi.

Qoraalka Xeer Ilaaliyaha uu Nuqul ka mid ah uu helay Wargeyska Waaheen kuna saxeexan yahay Xeer Ilaaliyaha Guud ee Qaranku waxa uu u dhigan yahay sidan:-

Ku: wasiirka Wasaaradda Warfaafinta JSL Hargeysa
Og: Wasiirka Madaxatooyadda JSL Hargeysa

Ujeedo:- Joojin Diiwaan gelinta Wargeysyada iyo TV-yada, si ku meel gaadh ah.

Waxaan idinla socodsiinaynaa in warbaahinta aad noo soo gudbisaan si aanu u diiwaan galino aanay buuxinin aqoontii iyo shuruudihii looga baahnaa, arrintaasi oo aan waafaqsanayn Xeerka Saxaafadda.

Sidoo kale, waxaa loo baahan yahay in wax ka bedel lagu sameeyo xeerkaas, si loo helo xeer dhamaystiran oo ka turjumaya Saxaafadda oo dhan.

Sidaasi, darted waxaanu idinku wargelinaynaa inaanu si ku meel gaadh ah u joojinay diiwaan gelintooda, ilaa inta wax ka bedel lagu samaynaayo xeerkaasi

ASlaa Mahad leh.
Xasan Axmed Aadan
Xeer ilaaliyaha Guud ee Qaranka.

Hadaba Joojinta Diiwaan gelinta Hay’addo Warbaahineed oo cusub oo ku soo biira Saxaafadda Somaliland eek u soo beegmay wakhtigani waxay daaha ka rogaysaa Tuhuno badan oo laga qabay in ay Jirto talaabo ay Xukuuamddu ku doonayso inay ku cunaqabatayso Saxaafadda taasoo soo if-baxday markii la arkay Xeerkii Saxaafadda oo Golaha Wakiiladda horyaala si wax ka bedel loogu sameeyo. Hase yeeshee hore Xukuumaddu way u beenisay inay dabada ka wado.

Balse Qoraalkan Xeer Ilaaliyuhu wuxuu markhaati ma doon u yahay in ay iyadu daaha dabadiisa ka hagaysay taasoo wakhtigan oo ah wakhti xaasaasi ah oo ay Ururo/Xisbiyo doonaya inay u Ololeeyaan Doorashooyinka soo socda ka hor istaagayso inay furtan karaan Hay’addo warbaahineed sida uu dhigayo Xeerka Furashada Ururada Siyaasaddu “Xeerka Nidaamka ururada iyo axsaabta siyaasada Lr.14/2011 qodobkiisa 18aad uu xuquuq gaar ah u siiyey ururadda siyaasadda iyo xisbiyadu in ay diiwaan gashan karaan saxaafad ay leeyihiin.”.

Sidoo kale waxa uu ka hor imanayaa Dastuurka Somaliland oo dhigaya in Muwaadin kastaa isagoo sharciga u marayo uu furan karo noocyadda Warbaahineed “QODOBKA 32AAD ee Dastuurka JSL ayaa fasaxaya xoriyadda saxaafadda, waxaanu sheegayaa qodobkaasi faqradiisa 1aad in muwaadin kastaa uu fikirkiisa xor u yahay kuna bandhigi karo hadal, qoraal,suugaan ama qaabkale” iyadoo ay hore Xukuumadihii kala danbeeyay u hor taagnaayeen Furashada Idaacadaha ayay hadana Xukuumaddani ku talaabsatay Joojintii intii ay ogolaayeen ee ahayd Jaraa’iaddada iyo Telefishanada. Ilaa hadana lama garanayo goorta ay qaadan doonto wax ka bedelka uu Xeer Ilaaliyuhu sheegay.

Tan iyo bilowgii Xukuumaddaba waxa ay Saxaafadda Somaliland la kawsatay talaabada ay Xukuumaddu ku faragalisay Xeerka Saxaafadda ee jira iyadoo wakhtigii ay Mucaaradka ahayd si weyn uga hor timi Xeer kale oo ay Xukuumaddii Rayaale ku doonaysay inay ku bedesho Xeerkan ay Imika Xukuumaddana hor geysay Golaha Wakiiladda si wax looga bedelo.

The Secret War: Tense ties plagued Africa ops

 By Sean D. Naylor - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 28, 2011 11:34:38 EST by New york Times

The U.S. operators were in trouble. Deep trouble. Along with some Ethiopian troops, a “really small” number of U.S. personnel were hunting a high-value target near the town of Bargal in Somalia’s autonomous Puntland region when they came under heavy fire that not only prevented them from killing or capturing the target but also pinned them down, according to several sources.

Running out of options on June 1, 2007, the operators called the destroyer Chafee sailing off the coast. In response, Chafee fired more than a dozen rounds from its 5-inch gun, a senior Pentagon official told Stars and Stripes (without mentioning that the mission was a desperate bid to rescue U.S. troops in Somalia). That naval gunfire — a rarity in the modern age — enabled the United States and Ethiopian troops “to break contact” and get away, a senior intelligence official said.

The close escape was a notable moment in a relationship between U.S. and Ethiopian forces that developed because each country perceived Somalia’s burgeoning Islamist militias as a threat but became strained as the U.S. pressed Ethiopia for more substantive on-the-ground cooperation.

The middle years of the last decade proved difficult for the U.S.’s efforts to destroy al-Qaida in East Africa. By mid-2003, as the insurgency blossomed in Iraq, the CIA had withdrawn its Predator drones from Djibouti, according to a special operations source with firsthand experience of operations in the Horn of Africa. “There just wasn’t a lucrative enough target environment to maintain a Predator program over there,” he said.
Lawless, anarchic Somalia was al-Qaida’s sanctuary and hub in the Horn. But getting U.S. intelligence and special ops personnel into Somalia was “really, really difficult,” said the intelligence official.

Invasion provided a path

However, in 2006, an opportunity to gain greater access to Somalia presented itself when Ethiopia invaded Somalia in an effort to oust the Islamic Courts Union, an Islamist group (sometimes referred to as the Council of Islamic Courts) that had seized power in Mogadishu from the Transitional Federal Government. Ethiopia, which had fought two previous wars with Somalia, first sent forces across the border in July to prop up the TFG, which had moved to Baidoa, about 160 miles northwest of Mogadishu. But in late December, a far larger Ethiopian force invaded with the intent of driving the ICU from power.

Despite speculation that Ethiopia invaded at the U.S.’s behest, cables from the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa released by WikiLeaks indicate Ethiopia felt forced to act by circumstances in Somalia. “The GOE [government of Ethiopia] feels ever more compelled to intervene in southern Somalia to counter what it sees as the growing threat of an extremist Islamic regime in Mogadishu that is cooperating with Eritrea and other foreign elements to undermine Ethiopian stability and territorial integrity,” said U.S. Ambassador Donald Yamamoto in a Dec. 6, 2006, cable. The same cable accurately predicted Ethiopia would invade in late December and that the incursion might “prove more difficult for Ethiopia than many now imagine.”

The cables make clear that the U.S. expected Ethiopia to invade. Nonetheless, a senior military official said events caught Joint Special Operations Command, which controls the military’s elite special ops forces, unprepared.

“The military wasn’t prepared to take any advantage of it,” the official said. “We should have been leaning forward to capitalize on this, and we did nothing.”

JSOC scrambled to take advantage by sending in small teams with Ethiopian special operations forces.
“Less than a dozen” JSOC operators went in, drawn from a mix of units, the intelligence official said. The largest number came from Naval Special Warfare Development Group, sometimes known as SEAL Team 6. The Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron also provided personnel. The numbers were kept small “because we didn’t need that much,” the official said.

But even the secret deployment of such small numbers of JSOC personnel into Somalia created angst in Washington’s policymaking circles.

“It was very uncomfortable,” the intelligence official said.

JSOC “would have gone with a much bigger capability and been much more aggressive.”
As it was, the deployment had to be approved by the defense secretary, “but he needed to get concurrence, or at least acknowledgment” from President George W. Bush, the official said.

JSOC’s focus in Somalia was on the handful of “high-value individuals” linked to al-Qaida. The United States had little interest in killing large numbers of regular Islamist fighters, the official said.

“If we wanted to kill a couple of thousand guys, we could have done that pretty much any time,” the official said.

The U.S. preference was for Ethiopians to do the direct action missions against al-Qaida figures whenever possible. The JSOC operators were to liaise with and provide assistance to them, “but also to effect a capture or a kill if necessary,” the official said.

Rapid movement

The mechanized Ethiopian columns made good progress at first, pushing southeast along the Shabelle River Valley to Mogadishu, as well as along a more southerly axis toward Somalia’s southern coast and the Kenyan border. “They moved pretty rapidly and we did seize on that to drive, and to help them drive, the al-Qaida guys toward the border of Kenya,” the official said.

In a Dec. 28 meeting with U.S. Ambassador to the African Union Cindy Courville, the TFG’s permanent representative to the African Union and ambassador to Ethiopia, Abdulkarim Farah, said the Islamic Courts “extremists” had fled Mogadishu the previous day by boat headed for the southern port of Ras Kamboni, according to a cable sent that day by U.S. Charge d’Affaires Janet Wilgus, posted by WikiLeaks. Another Wilgus cable the same day said Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had “reiterated” his request for U.S. help to “interdict” extremists.

“Meles said that groups of ex-members of the CIC were fleeing south to Kismayo in a convoy of approximately 150 vehicles,” the cable reported. “The CIC convoy included foreign fighters, some wounded, and presumably some CIC leaders.”

By Jan. 4, 2007, however, in a meeting with Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer, Meles was hailing “bilateral military cooperation with the United States” and calling for “continuing and improved joint intelligence operations to target terrorists,” according to a Jan. 8, 2007, cable from Yamamoto.
“Meles welcomed support from the United States and called for continued cooperation to capitalize on the situation on the ground” in Somalia, the cable said, adding that Meles said he had given his military chief of staff “‘very clear guidelines’ to cooperate with the [U.S. government], including on identification of foreign fighters in Somalia.”

However, some U.S. support quickly wore out its welcome with the Ethiopian leadership.

‘A low profile’

On Jan. 7, an Air Force special operations AC-130 gunship, apparently flying out of Ethiopia, struck suspected al-Qaida targets near Ras Kamboni. The next day, CBS News quoted Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman as saying the strike was based on intelligence “that led us to believe we had principal al-Qaida leaders in an area where we could identify them and take action against them.”

In a Jan. 9 meeting with Yamamoto “Meles noted that press reports of an alleged U.S. strike in Somalia may create diplomatic problems for the United States, but so long as terrorist targets are hit and the United States is seen as addressing Somalia’s humanitarian needs, the United States will make a positive impact and receive support from the Somali people,” according to a Jan. 10, 2007, Yamamoto cable.

“Meles urged the U.S. military, however, to keep its footprint ‘slight,’ so as not to play into the hands of jihadists who wish to portray action in Somalia as a crusade against Islam,” Yamamoto stated. “Meles said he was not concerned about press reports regarding U.S. action in Somalia, so long as terrorist targets were hit.”
Two days after the AC-130 attack, another airstrike hit four towns near Ras Kamboni. (The type of aircraft used in the attack has never been confirmed. The Ethiopians had their own attack helicopters, but a Jan. 12, 2007, Yamamoto cable refers to a “U.S. military … strike Jan. 9 against members of the East Africa Al Qaeda cell believed to be on the run in a remote area of Somalia near the Kenyan border.”)

With Ethiopia planning to pull most of its troops out of Somalia within a couple of weeks, to be replaced by international peacekeepers, a note of concern began to creep into exchanges between U.S. and Ethiopian officials. In a Jan. 11 meeting with Yamamoto, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin “requested that the USG [U.S. government] endeavor to keep U.S. military engagement in Somalia at ‘a low profile,’ citing concerns among potential African TCCs [troop contributing countries] that media reports of direct U.S. involvement in airstrikes created greater risk of terrorist attacks against peace-keeping contingents,” Yamamoto said in a Jan. 11 cable. “Seyoum recommended that the USG publicly state that it would not conduct any future military operations in Somalia, so as not to ‘alarm’ potential TCCs for Somalia.”

But an AC-130 conducted another strike Jan. 22 in southern Somalia, which the Washington Post reported Jan. 24. (An account in The Nation this year said the attack happened Jan. 23 and targeted Ahmed Madobe, a deputy of ICU leader Hassan Turki. Madobe survived the attack, but was captured, according to the magazine.) Meles met privately with Yamamoto on Jan. 25 and told him the AC-130 strike was “terrific” because “the targets were hit and there were no civilian casualties,” the ambassador reported in a Jan. 25 cable. But Meles had a serious complaint. “The problem was that in less than 24 hours after the strike, the Washington Post published a report on it, clearly showing there is no ‘opsec’ [operational security] on these military operations,” the cable said, adding that Meles was worried the publicity was weakening international support for the peacekeeping mission.

“He requested that for opsec purposes the gunships be removed from the area,” the cable continued. “In addition, the Prime Minister requested that the U.S. refrain from further military strikes in Somalia.” Instead, Meles said, Ethiopian forces “would act on information relating to where extremists were located.” Yamamoto noted that the Ethiopian military “has been effective in acting quickly and engaging targets.”

“We recommend compliance with the Prime Minister’s request for removal of the AC-130 aircraft,” Yamamoto said. “Heavy press interest has made it difficult to secure and protect AC-130 operations.”
Before long, the AC-130 element was on its way out of Ethiopia.

“They got told to go home,” said the senior military official, adding that the Ethiopians had warned that AC-130 operations would have to end if they were made public.

Bilateral relationships

The Ethiopians also temporarily shut down the fusion cell that helped coordinate U.S. and Ethiopian actions in Somalia, in particular the sharing of intelligence related to al-Qaida in East Africa leaders and other foreign fighters in Somalia. The Jan. 25 cable says Yamamoto and Meles met that day “to discuss the GOE decision to suspend operations by our fusion cell.” Meles told the ambassador there was “no suspension of mil-to-mil relations, and that operations, specifically intelligence-sharing and targeting of HVI/HVT [high-value individuals/high-value targets] must continue,” the cable says. “[T]omorrow we could resume all contacts and information-sharing.”

Meles “made it clear that the ENDF [Ethiopian National Defense Force] will continue its objectives of neutralizing extremist elements and HVI/HVT, and that Ethiopia welcomes information from the USG,” the cable said. Meles “stressed that information and material obtained from Somalia is fully accessible and will be openly shared with the USG. He underscored the importance of Ethiopia’s bilateral relationship with the United States.”

“The Somalia fusion cell continues to provide an important function welcomed by the Ethiopians,” Yamamoto said. “The fusion cell will be able to deconflict and support ENDF operations, as well as maintain close U.S.-Ethiopian mil-mil ties.”

Those ties were embodied by the JSOC operators working with Ethiopian special operations forces on both sides of the Ethiopia-Somalia border.

Ethiopia used its special operations elements to buttress the TFG’s fledgling military. In his Jan. 9 meeting with Yamamoto, “Meles said Ethiopia planned to embed personnel in Somali units, to train and equip Somali intelligence and assist with operations,” according to the Jan. 10 cable. “It was essential to conduct clandestine operations against the jihadists, to prevent them from reorganizing within Somalia, Meles added.”
But although the cables quote Meles emphasizing the Islamist threat when talking with U.S. officials, they also reveal that for Meles’ government, the Somalia conflict was as much a proxy war between Eritrea and Ethiopia as it was an alliance among the TFG, Ethiopia and the U.S. against the jihadists. Thus U.S. and Ethiopian interests in Somalia overlapped, as Meles told Yamamoto, but each country had different priorities. The U.S. was completely focused on capturing or killing a handful of “high-value individuals” in the East African al-Qaida cell. Ethiopia’s primary goals were to oppose the wider Islamist threat posed by the ICU and to keep its bitter enemy Eritrea from being able to attack Ethiopia via the ICU.

Eight weeks before the invasion, Meles told a U.S. delegation “that the normally anti-Islamic Eritrean Government was pursuing a short-sighted policy of aiding jihadists, apparently in the hopes that the extremists ‘would attack Ethiopia before they attack us,’ ” according to an Oct. 26 cable from U.S. Charge d’Affaires Vicki Huddleston. “Meles claimed that the Eritreans had provided the CIC with Russian-made, shoulder-fired anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry. … He noted that the GOE had observed some tension between the two groups in training camps in Somali [sic], but that their unusual cooperation was continuing.”

In his Jan. 11 meeting with Yamamoto, Seyoum, the Ethiopian foreign minister, said Kenya had taken into custody “senior Eritrean military officers … who had been ‘training, organizing, and commanding an international force to destroy the constitutional government in Somalia’ ” before the Ethiopian offensive forced them across the Kenyan border.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and Ethiopian forces enjoyed a patchy relationship with the Kenyans as they tried to get Somalia’s southern neighbor to round up the most dangerous Islamists who fled across the border.
“What we were trying to do was have forces postured [on the Kenyan side of the border] so that when they came across to try to arrest or detain them,” the intelligence official said.

Armed JSOC personnel based in Kenya accompanied Kenyan forces to the border but were there to “enable” the Kenyans rather than to conduct direct action missions themselves, the official said.
However, U.S. trust in the Kenyans was finite.

“We were always convinced that the Kenyans were spilling their guts to certain Somali elements,” said an intelligence source with long experience in the Horn. “Some of our concerns were well-founded. Others were not.”

‘Marriages of convenience’

U.S. officials were not alone in their reservations. In his Jan. 4 meeting with Frazer, Meles voiced concern “that Kenya’s susceptibility to ‘financial inducements’ threatened to jeopardize Ethiopia’s operations … [and] called for the USG to highlight to Kenyan authorities the need to capture extremists.”

The Kenyans sometimes either released Islamists sought by the U.S. “or they would just not let them in,” the senior intelligence official said. This ran counter to the U.S. desire for Kenya to allow the Islamists to cross the border so they could be detained and screened.

“We’re wanting them to let them in, roll up the whole group of them and then let’s go face by face and start looking,” the official said. “Then you can push them back across the border, those that are just Somalis that got rolled up.” The failure to “rein them in” meant some Islamist fighters “probably lived to fight another day,” the official said.

This type of behavior, in which a national ally could not be trusted to round up suspected Islamist fighters on its territory, prompted the intelligence source with long experience in the Horn to describe the region as a “wilderness of mirrors” characterized by “marriages of convenience” between government and nongovernment actors in the Somali drama. “You never really knew who was a true partner and who wasn’t,” the source said.

Meles said in his Jan. 4, 2007, meeting with Frazer “that he hoped Ethiopian troops could withdraw within two weeks, following one week of ‘mopping up.’ ” But his hopes were misplaced. The Islamist fighters returned to Mogadishu and elsewhere to wage a guerrilla campaign that bogged the Ethiopians down for two years.

Ethiopian cooperation with U.S. forces against al-Qaida began to fray.
“Our love relationship with them didn’t last very long,” the senior military official said.
Small JSOC teams continued working with the Ethiopians in Somalia, but it was a tense partnership that Ethiopia did not want to expand, according to the official. JSOC “wanted to train more Ethiopians, they wanted to train Ethiopian and Somali surrogates to go in and do things, they wanted to do what you would naturally expect,” the official said.

But the Ethiopians’ attitude was, “ ‘We don’t really want any help, we don’t want to be associated with you while we’re doing this, we don’t want people to think we’re your proxy,’ ” the official said. “So that was the issue. There was a lot of pressure put on them and they wouldn’t let us do the things that we wanted to do.”
However, JSOC’s role in training and fighting with Ethiopian special ops forces did not end immediately.
“JSOC did that for a while,” because after working with the most elite U.S. special operators, the Ethiopians were reluctant to work with regular Special Forces, the special ops element most experienced in training host-nation militaries, the military official said. But the U.S. campaign against Islamist militant leaders in Somalia continued, with a notable success May 1, 2008, when at least one Tomahawk cruise missile fired from a Navy vessel slammed into a house in the town of Dhusamareb, killing Aden Hashi Ayro, leader of the al-Shabaab militia that rose from the ashes of the ICU, as well as seven other Islamist fighters. The attack occurred less than two months after a March 3 Tomahawk strike hit the town of Dhoble. Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a leading figure in al-Qaida in East Africa, and Turki were reportedly there but survived the strike.
President Bush had to approve each strike, the senior intelligence official said.

“The decision-making process … was unbelievably painful,” the official said. JSOC’s attitude was, “Just let us make the decision and we’ll be able to kill these guys,” the official said. As for “political consequences,” the official compared it to the decisions to authorize Predator and Reaper drone strikes against al-Qaida targets in Pakistan and elsewhere. “It’s like firing drones, it has a political consequence, [but] what would you rather have: the guy dead and then you get through one weekend of Sunday talk shows and you get onto another problem, or do you want this guy still around? And it was not easy to convince the powers that be.”
The official cited the strike that killed Ayro as an example.

“In order for that decision to be made, the confidence level they wanted [was] almost 100 percent, because they didn’t want to have this compound destroyed with a whole bunch of women and children getting lined up,” the official said. Therefore, U.S. forces “really had to time the collection” of intelligence. For real-time video of the target site, the military used a little-known variant of the Navy P-3 Orion aircraft called a Chain Shot. It was “a very good aircraft, very effective,” the official said. “We used that capability quite a bit because it has long legs.”

The Chain Shot flew out of Djibouti, the official said.

“So the precision of timing when that thing was going to be on station, and then the timing for when the TLAMs [Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles] had to be teed up, ready to go, because if we saw the target, then the decision had to be made … and it’s not just push a button [on the Navy vessel firing the Tomahawk], there’s a whole series of things that the guys there had to go through, they had to tee everything up … then there’s the time to fly … it really, really had to be precise,” the official said.

The Ethiopian military pulled out of Somalia in January 2009. The withdrawal closed a window of opportunity for U.S. forces.

“They were truly abetted by circumstances on the ground in Somalia that don’t exist anymore,” said a former military officer with long experience in the CENTCOM theater. But JSOC and the CIA had done their best to maximize the chances presented by the Ethiopian invasion.

“During that time, when the Ethiopians were in there — because the Ethiopians went all the way to Mogadishu — there was a lot of opportunities that we were trying to take advantage of, and, in a way, did,” the intelligence official said.

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2011/11/army-tense-ties-plagued-africa-ops-112811w/

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2011/11/army-tense-ties-plagued-africa-ops-112811w/

Comment: NATO, AFRICOM and the New White Man's Burden

“Western countries are once again using feigned concern as pretext for invasion and resource theft.”

As we watched with bewilderment, NATO's military assault on Libya using “humanitarian intervention” as it's pretext, we are reminded of an earlier period of Western European “civilizing” missions into Africa.

Shortly after the Berlin West African Conference of 1884-1885; armed with bibles and bullets, a host of countries: Britain; France; Germany; Belgium; and Portugal, “scrambled” out of Western Europe in a quest to “save Africans from themselves”.

With their claim of intellectual and moral superiority echoed by Rudyard Kipling's infamously imperialistic poem, these European powers took full control of the land and lives of their new African subjects. Africa, having not fully recovered from the ravages of both the Trans-Atlantic and the Trans-Saharan Slave Trades, was ill prepared for what was to follow.

With the exception of Liberia and Ethiopia, every scare inch of Africa was to come under the control of European imperialist powers. The result: nearly a hundred years of a brutal occupation; further dehumanization; theft of natural resources while subjecting Africans to internal slavery.

The resulting loss of life was so high that no serious effort has ever been made to quantify it. But if Belgian, which controlled only 7% of Africa, could murder 10-15 million Congolese during this period, one could get a close estimate through extrapolation, the number of African lives destroyed by Britain, France, Germany, Portugal and later Italy. Given this history, coupled with the horrific results of NATO's incursion into Libya, what then are we to make of NATO's new identity as ''human rights interventionist.''

“Europe was in desperate need of an answer to rescue it.”
At the end of the 19th century, Western Europe was in the middle of an industrial revolution that it could not sustain with the limited resources and markets within it's own borders. Competition for new resources and markets amongst these European powers was high. With the economic challenges resulting from the “Long Depression of 1873-1896''; overpopulation; a high rate of poverty and unemployment, Europe was in desperate need of an answer to rescue it from this malaise. Africa would prove to be the answer a thousand times over.

Today we find Europe, along with the United States, facing serious economic challenges not unlike those faced by Europe in the late 1800s.

Like then, Europe and the United States are desperately looking for economic solutions that cannot be found within their national boundaries. With virtually all of the resources required to sustain their economies existing in other parts of the world but particularly in Africa, these Western countries are once again using feigned concern as pretext for invasion and resource theft. With competition now coming from Russia, India and China for these same resources, new and desperate strategies will have to be created in an attempt to justify these invasions. But how new are they?

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), a military/security alliance between Western European powers and the United States, was formed shortly after the Second World War in 1949. It came out of the same Atlantic Charter that gave birth to the United Nations. Its stated purpose was to counter what member countries perceived as an expansionist threat coming from the Soviet Union. During it's existence there has never been any direct military engagement with the Soviet Union. Instead, proxy wars, mostly fought in Africa and Latin America, would become the order of the day. While the Soviet Union sought to (at times meekly) aid the various Liberation Movements in Africa and the Americas, the NATO countries on the other hand, were interested in maintaining their sphere of economic influence in these regions.

“New and desperate strategies will have to be created in an attempt to justify these invasions.”

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO virtually overnight had become an irrelevant military bureaucracy. Many military and foreign policy experts began to speculate that NATO would soon be relegated to the dustbin of history. To avoid what seemed to be an imminent demise, NATO began looking for new roles to play in world affairs. What has happened as a result, as one foreign policy observer describes, has been “mission creep on a grand scale.”

No longer concerned about guarding against the Red Army rushing across its borders, NATO countries have now armed themselves with a host of new missions (pretexts), from: fighting terrorism; saving the environment; crisis management; to “humanitarian intervention (sic).” With a new futuristic $1.38 billion building on a 100 acre site in Brussels, and having expanded from it's original 16 members to 28 (most of the new member states ironically coming from the former Soviet Union), and with the combined military budgets of member states comprising 70 percent of what the world spends on defense, this “new” NATO is riding high with a renewed sense of purpose, anxious to show the world it still has relevance. Africa (and the world) should be worried.

While significantly controlled by the US, which provides 75 percent of it's budget, NATO is headed by the arrogant and opportunistic Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former prime minister of Denmark. With a very aggressive agenda for this made over NATO including offering NATO's services to the United Nations as a “global peacekeeping” force, he has in recent years already overseen NATO's involvement in several conflicts outside of Europe. Most notably, its involvement with the US in Afghanistan where it continues to kill innocent people, and is continuously asked to leave by many distraught and outraged Afghans.

“With the combined military budgets of member states comprising 70 percent of what the world spends on defense, this “new” NATO is riding high with a renewed sense of purpose.”

It has also become involved in patrolling the waters off the coast of Somalia to protect foreign vessels from being seajacked by so-called Somali pirates. This campaign has resulted in an avalanche of deaths of Somalis, passengers and crew members of seajacked ships. Keeping in mind, when Somalis started boarding these ships which had illegally begun fishing in their waters seventeen years ago, not one hostage taken by them had ever been killed. All that changed with the Obama administration coming to power in 2009 (the year NATO, with mostly US Naval ships, started patrolling the Somalia coast).

In April of that year, President Obama gave the first orders for snipers to kill Somalis who had boarded the American flagged ship, The Maersk Alabama demanding ransom. France would soon follow with the killing of eight Somalis in another seajacking incident. Now with the U.S. and France with NATO support, seemingly engaged in a full scale war against the Somali nationalist group Al-Shabat, we can only expect the number of dead Somalis to increase even more. This U.S. war in Somalia is also being augmented by troops from Kenya, Uganda and Burundi, with Uganda and Burundi involvement ironically, coming under the auspices of an African Union peace keeping mission. A new U.S. Drone base for this war has just been established in Ethiopia as well. The imperialist powers are obviously up to their old tricks of using treacherous Africans to help in doing their ''dirty work.''

Immediately following the murder of Muammar Gaddafi, Chris Coons, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subcommittee on African affairs was reported as saying “Muammar Gadhafi’s death and the promise of a new Libyan regime are arguments for the measured U.S. military response in central Africa...''. Encouraged by the results in Libya, the U.S. has recently sent roughly 100 troops to Uganda to track down members of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA). U.S. troops are also being sent to the Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan'.
“This U.S. war in Somalia is also being augmented by troops from Kenya, Uganda and Burundi.”

It is obvious Senator Coons made this remark with AFRICOM in mind. This newly created U.S.military command for Africa, conceived by the Heritage Foundation during the Bush administration, could not have come at a more opportunistic time for the imperialistic thinking NATO countries. Working in conjunction with AFRICOM during the Libya campaign, and gloating over it's alleged success, NATO now sees itself as indispensable in this new war to ''save humanity.'' The cooperation between these 2 military packs represent a perilous development for Africa. With the Obama administration acknowledging the Libya campaign as AFRICOM's ''first'' undertaking, Africans no longer have to guess what the rest of AFRICOM's endeavors on the Continent will look like.

Like their 19th century predecessors in their mission to take on the ''burden'' of spreading the benefits of European ''enlightenment',' this new generation of marauders from the ''North'' are poised to, once again, impose on Africa the coldness of death, destruction and displacement which so characterized their earlier campaigns of human upliftment on the Continent.

Having failed to effectively respond to NATO's and AFRICOM’s assault on Libya, Africa must at some point show that it has learned the lessons of the past, and resolve itself to remove this ''white man's burden,” once and for all.

Harold Green can be contacted at paclwp@msn.com.

Pakistan Tells U.S. to 'Vacate' Air Base as Border Strike Inflames Tensions Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/26/deadly-border-strike-inflames-tensions-between-us-pakistan/#ixzz3RA2mDOjA

Published November 26, 2011

Pakistan's government has ordered the U.S. to "vacate" an air base used for suspected drone attacks, in retaliation for a NATO strike that allegedly killed two-dozen Pakistani soldiers, Fox News has confirmed. 

The demand marked the latest reprisal out of Pakistan, as the U.S. and NATO allies scramble to investigate the incident. Islamabad had already ordered the country's border crossings into Afghanistan closed, blocking off NATO supply lines, after the strike. The government issued the air base demand, and pledged a "complete review" of its relationship with the U.S. and NATO, following an emergency military meeting chaired by Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. 

Pakistan's Defense Committee condemned the attack in a written statement, saying the strike was "violative of international law and had gravely dented the fundamental basis of Pakistan's cooperation" with NATO against terrorists. 

"The attack on Pakistan Army border posts is totally unacceptable and warrants an effective national response," the statement said. 

The government urged the U.S. to leave the Shamsi Air Base within 15 days. The U.S. is suspected of using the facility in the past to launch armed drones and observation aircraft. Pakistan made a similar demand over the summer, though officials reportedly claimed the CIA had already suspended its use of the base as a staging ground for armed drones months earlier. 

Still, the tone of the Pakistani government's statement Saturday underscored the depth of the potential fallout after Pakistan accused NATO aircraft of firing on two army checkpoints and killing 24 soldiers. The incident early Saturday quickly exacerbated tensions between the two countries and threatened to escalate into a standoff more severe than one last year after a similar but less deadly strike. 

Last year, Pakistan closed the Torkham border crossing to NATO supplies for 10 days after U.S. helicopters accidentally killed two Pakistanis. On Saturday, Pakistan went further, closing both of the country's border crossings into landlocked Afghanistan. 

A short stoppage may have little effect on the war effort, but could have deadly consequences. During last year's dispute, militants took advantage of the impasse to launch attacks against stranded or rerouted trucks carrying NATO supplies. 

With 24 dead in the pre-dawn incident Saturday, U.S. officials expressed regret and vowed to launch an investigation. If confirmed, it would be the deadliest friendly fire incident by NATO against Pakistani troops since the Afghan war began a decade ago.

"This incident has my highest personal attention and my commitment to thoroughly investigate it to determine the facts," said Gen. John Allen, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. 

"My most sincere and personal heartfelt condolences go out to the families and loved ones of any members of Pakistan Security Forces who may have been killed or injured." 

A statement said NATO leadership remains "committed" to improving security ties with Pakistan. 

Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, told Fox News that the air support was called in by ground forces near the border consisting of Afghan and coalition troops. Jacobson said the air support "highly likely caused the Pakistani casualties," and said it is in everybody's interest to quickly investigate the incident. 

"This is an incident that obviously has implications that reach far beyond the military side, so an investigation was started straight away," he told Fox News on Saturday. He said insurgents are the only ones who would benefit from a potential conflict. 

U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter also acknowledged the claims that Pakistani soldiers had been killed. 

"I regret the loss of life of any Pakistani servicemen, and pledge that the United States will work closely with Pakistan to investigate this incident," Munter said.

U.S.-Pakistani relations have lurched from one diplomatic standoff to the next since the U.S. raid that killed Usama bin Laden in May in a Pakistani military town. 

Before retiring, outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen in September publicly accused elements of Pakistan's spy agency of helping the militant Haqqani network in attacks against the U.S. and its allies. 

Most recently, the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. resigned amid claims he engineered a memo to Washington asking for its help in reining in the military in exchange for a raft of pro-American policies. He has denied any connection to the memo, but was replaced earlier this week by democracy activist Sherry Rehman. 

The latest incident triggered a new round of problems between the two countries. 

Gilani told reporters he summoned Munter to protest the alleged NATO attack, according to a Foreign Ministry statement. It said the attack was a "grave infringement of Pakistan's sovereignty" and could have serious repercussions on Islamabad's cooperation with NATO. Pakistan has also lodged protests in Washington and NATO headquarters in Brussels, it said. 

A Pakistani customs official told The Associated Press that he received verbal orders Saturday to stop all NATO supplies from crossing the border through Torkham in either direction. The operator of a terminal at the border where NATO trucks park before they cross confirmed the closure.
Saeed Ahmad, a spokesman for security forces at the other crossing in Chaman in southwest Pakistan, said that his crossing was also blocked following orders "from higher-ups." 

The U.S., Pakistani, and Afghan militaries have long wrestled with the technical difficulties of patrolling a border that in many places is disputed or poorly marked.
Saturday's incident took place a day after a meeting between NATO's Gen. Allen and Pakistan army chief Gen. Kayani in Islamabad to discuss border operations. 

The checkpoints that were attacked had been recently set up and were intended to stop Pakistani Taliban militants holed up in Afghanistan from crossing the border and staging attacks, said two local government administrators. 

The Pakistani military has blamed Pakistani Taliban militants and their allies for killing dozens of security forces in such cross-border attacks since the summer. Pakistan has criticized Afghan and foreign forces for not doing enough to stop the attacks, which it says have originated from the eastern Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan. The U.S. has largely pulled out of these provinces, leaving the militants in effective control of many areas along the border. 

The U.S. helicopter attack that killed two Pakistani soldiers on Sept. 30 of last year took place south of Mohmand in the Kurram tribal area. A joint U.S.-Pakistan investigation found that Pakistani soldiers fired at the two U.S. helicopters prior to the attack, a move the investigation team said was likely meant to notify the aircraft of their presence after they passed into Pakistani airspace several times. 

Senior U.S. diplomatic and military officials eventually apologized for the attack, saying it could have been prevented with greater coordination between the U.S. and Pakistan. Pakistan responded by reopening the border crossing. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Maraykanka oo Hareereeyay Somalia fiiri sawirkan

Isahakia From Somaliland : One hundred years of solitude and sufferance

Currently, a majority of the community members live in Kabati estate and the low cost KCC village, often associated with illicit brews and crime.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

By Antony Gitonga

Members of the Isahakia community in Naivasha express their feelings when they met area DC Ms Hellen Kiilu over the ownership of a piece of land which KARI claims to own. [PHOTO: /JAMES KEYI/STANDARD]

You probably haven’t heard about them, although they have been in our midst for over 100 years.

They are the Isakhakia, named after the Isaq clan in Somaliland, from whence they came.

Presently, there are over 10,000 members third and fourth generations of the Isakhakia in Kenya, but they claim they have been treated like foreigners.

Ali Farah, the Isahakia community chair expresses a point during a recent meeting in Naivasha. [PHOTOS: ANTONY GITONGA/STANDARD]

They say they have moved from the Government office to another to pursue their land and other citizenship rights.

The first group of the Isakhakia arrived in Kenya as porters, guards and gun-bearers for Hugh Cholmondeley, the 3rd Baron Delamere in 1890s.

Delamere made his first trip to Africa in 1891 on a hunting expedition in Somaliland, and where he returned every year.

In 1894, Delamere was nearly mauled by a lion, and was only saved when his Somali gun-bearer, Abdullah Ashur, leapt on the beast, giving Delamere time to retrieve his rifle.

The injured Delamere was carried to Kenya by the porters, who decided to stay on in then British protectorate.

According to Ahmed Ali Farah, the Isahakia community chairman, that was the turning point for the community.

According to ageing members of the community, they settled in the country in the late 1890s, with a huge number settling in Naivasha.

"Other members settled around Princess Elizabeth Park (now Embakasi) but were later evicted by the colonial government," says Farah.

‘Kambi’ Somali

He adds some moved to Isiolo and other towns where the popular term "Kambi Somali" (Somali camp) was coined to describe their homes.

In 1926, the community was awarded with 15,000 acres by the colonial Legislative Council (Legco).

After decades residing in Naivasha, the community was in the line of fire from the colonial Government in 1952, accused of collaborating with the Mau Mau freedom fighters.

"Our fathers were accused of assisting the Mau Mau escape from the then Naivasha prison," explains Farah.

As punishment, the British sold all the dairy cattle at Sh3 each at a public auction.

According to Ms Asha Adan, 80, she endured beatings and torture from the British army for alleged support of the Mau Mau.

The community had no reprieve; the early years of the Kenyatta Government faced Shifta insurgents, who the Isakhakia were again accused of supporting.

A third generation Isakhakia, Adan says in 1972, the Kenyatta Government accused them of being shiftas and destroyed all their houses leaving, 5,000 people homeless.

Currently living in Kabati estate in Naivasha, the granny has vivid memories of the beatings meted out on her when guards descended on their mud-walled houses.

"They came early in the morning and attacked us for no apparent reason, thus we became the first IDPs in the country."

Somaliland is often lumped with Somalia, although it was an autonomous region before the unification with the rest of Somalia at independence in 1961.

It was under British rule while Italians colonised the Southern parts of the country, including Mogadishu.

Unitary Government

Somaliland has since reclaimed its autonomy after the fall of the unitary Government in Mogadishu in 1991.

"Many of us were later used to construct the current Naivasha GK Prison," Farah explains, adding that the facility "was constructed on part of our land."

A school constructed by the community, Naivasha Somali Boarding Primary in 1960, was similarly taken over by the Government and renamed Naivasha Boarding Primary School.

"We are the founders of the school and we have pictures showing our forefathers opening the institution, in the presence some British masters," Farah says.

"Though we came from Somaliland, the Kenya Government recognised us but that is all we have," Farah said, adding the historical injustices against the community need addressing.