Where Have All the Islamists Gone?

[Rach3]

Horn of Africa: Regional war?

Ethiopian Warplanes Attack Somalia

ZANZIBAR, Tanzania, Dec. 24 — Ethiopia sent its warplanes to bomb Somalia today, openly escalating its conflict with Islamist fighters into a dreaded regional war.

... Until today, Ethiopian officials denied they had combat forces in Somalia, saying instead that their presence was limited to a few hundred military advisors. But witnesses had said Ethiopian troops were already in Somalia.

... 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 mercenaries from Yemen, Egypt, Syria and Libya who want to turn Somalia into the third front of jihad, after Iraq and Afghanistan. On Friday, residents of Mogadishu said they saw boatloads of armed men landing on the city’s beaches.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/w...&en=7190c64e905ada39&ei=5094&partner=homepage

NYT is right on, definitely a regional war here. Watch for Ertirea's involvement, naturally. The 4,200 UN soldiers on the border won't be doing anything, as usual.

http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unmee/

 

[devil-fire]

The 4,200 UN soldiers on the border won't be doing anything, as usual.

recently i saw part of an interview on BBC with a U.N. negotiator who returned from darfur. the guy said basically that he was trying to negotiate without the tool of force in any capacity because the security council wouldn't agree on any course of action. he mentioned that there were a spectrum of measures that could have been taken that would have involved agreement from the security council that ranges from doing nothing on one end to 'sending in the troops' on the other, with lots of things in between like making no-fly zones. unfortunately there is just the right level of political interest in this region that some oppose an intervention and the rest don't want to participate unilaterally.

it seems hell is going to freeze over before the U.N. intents to prevent ethnic cleansing in africa

 

[Rach3]

it seems hell is going to freeze over before the U.N. intents to prevent ethnic cleansing in africa

Ethnic cleansing?

 

[Hurkyl]

Ethnic cleansing?

I presume he's griping about Rwanda and the like. But I'm with you; I don't see how it's relevant to this thread.

 

[Yonoz]

I presume he's griping about Rwanda and the like. But I'm with you; I don't see how it's relevant to this thread.

I think it's relevant to this bit of the OP:

The 4,200 UN soldiers on the border won't be doing anything, as usual.

 

[Hurkyl]

I think it's relevant to this bit of the OP:

We're referring to the bit about ethnic cleansing.

 

[devil-fire]

We're referring to the bit about ethnic cleansing.

what i was talking about when i said ethnic cleansing is that the UN soldiers on the boarder are not going to be doing anything as a matter of course. why would anyone expect UN soldiers do anything about an ethiopian invasion of somalia?

 

[Hurkyl]

what i was talking about when i said ethnic cleansing is that the UN soldiers on the boarder are not going to be doing anything as a matter of course. why would anyone expect UN soldiers do anything about an ethiopian invasion of somalia?

If you merely meant something to the effect of

The UN won't even stop ethnic cleansing, so they certainly won't stop something as mundane as this!​

then say so. Since those extra thought processes were not present in your original post; the only reasonable reading is that you were calling the current situation in Somalia as an example ethnic cleansing.

 

[Rach3]

what i was talking about when i said ethnic cleansing is that the UN soldiers on the boarder are not going to be doing anything as a matter of course. why would anyone expect UN soldiers do anything about an ethiopian invasion of somalia?

Why would they want to? The Ethiopians are assisting the U.N.-backed Somali government, by fightning the Islamic militias which are the common enemy.

 

[Rach3]

what i was talking about when i said ethnic cleansing is that the UN soldiers on the boarder are not going to be doing anything as a matter of course. why would anyone expect UN soldiers do anything about an ethiopian invasion of somalia?

To clarify, my comment was about the U.N. force on the Eritrean-Ethiopian border. They're ostensibly there to secure a disputed territory between two enemies (wiki article). Since the NYT article expects Eritrea to become involved against Ethiopia, I was commenting on how the U.N. force would be powerless to prevent re-ignition of an old conflict, despite their "mandate".

I'm actually not aware of any U.N. force in Somalia or its borders...

 

[Rach3]

Regional war likely

Grim views all around.

Ethiopia Attacks Airport in Somali Capital

NAIROBI, Kenya , Dec. 25 — Ethiopia has plunged into war with Somalia’s Islamist forces, pushing ground troops deep into Somali territory on Sunday and attacking the airport in the capital of Mogadishu today, in a major escalation that could turn Somalia’s internal crisis into a violent religious conflict that engulfs the entire Horn of Africa.

Threat of regional conflict over Somalia

A UN report claiming that a number of African and Middle East countries are helping to arm Islamic militants trying to seize control of Somalia has raised fears that there could be a regional conflict over this failed state in the Horn of Africa.

The fear in particular is that Ethiopia and Eritrea will come into conflict because they support opposite sides and might see in Somalia another battleground in which to continue the intermittent war over their own border dispute.

Background: Somalia teeters on the brink of an Islamist takeover

...Eritrea, a predominately Muslim country, has reportedly been supporting the Islamic Court Union because the Somali government relies on Ethiopia, and Eritrea would like to see Ethiopia mired in a bloody quagmire.

A large-scale war in Somalia involving Ethiopia would in all likelihood drag in Eritrea and Sudan - a haven for Islamic terrorism, and a former headquarter of al-Qaida - and probably Djibouti, one of the few Muslim countries participating in the US-led war on terror.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/25/w...&en=9a03166445c29905&ei=5094&partner=homepage
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6154690.stm
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881976465&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 

[devil-fire]

If you merely meant something to the effect of

The UN won't even stop ethnic cleansing, so they certainly won't stop something as mundane as this!​

then say so. Since those extra thought processes were not present in your original post; the only reasonable reading is that you were calling the current situation in Somalia as an example ethnic cleansing.

what i was saying is that the UN has been presented with situations that clearly called for dramatic action and they did nothing. this is a situation that does not yet require any dramatic action, so yes, the 4,200 UN soldiers on the border won't be doing anything, as usual.

 

[Rach3]

Huh?

Islamist Forces in Somali City Vanish

...Many of the teenage troops who made up the backbone of the Islamist army had blended back into the civilian population, walking around without guns or their trademark green skullcaps.

The sudden reversal left it unclear whether a war that had threatened to consume the Horn of Africa had quickly ended, or the Islamists had merely gone underground, preparing to wage a guerrilla insurgency, as some leaders had threatened.

“The whole city is just waiting,” said Sheik Ahmed Shiro, a Koranic teacher in Mogadishu...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/w...&en=ef456048be1e45de&ei=5094&partner=homepage