From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri May 29 2009 - 14:05:02 EDT
Ethiopia ready to foil 'al-Qaeda plot'
Fri, 29 May 2009 15:58:12 GMT
Ethiopia has expressed its readiness to return to chaos-plagued Somalia,
should there be a regional intergovernmental military mission.
On Thursday, the deputy head of the Ethiopian mission to Kenya said Addis
Ababa was ready to send back its forces to Somalia to fight alongside a
potential coalition force seconded by the six-nation east African body, the
Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a Press TV correspondent
reported.
"Ethiopia will not intervene unilaterally in Somalia but will only be part
of a regional intervention," the official Yelibu Lijalem was quoted as
saying.
Speaking in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, he said it was the entire region
that was threatened by the Somali insurgents.
He accused the insurgents of 'terrorism' suggesting a link between them and
the Taliban and al-Qaeda, which he claimed, where plotting to turn the Horn
of Africa into a launch pad for terrorist activities.
"We are entitled to defend ourselves and this is clear in the UN charter.
These terrorists will not confine themselves to Somalia but to other
countries. If they come to us we will crush them," Lijalem added.
In 2006, Ethiopia militarily intervened to help Somalia's embattled former
transitional administration against the insurgency. The troops pulled out
following two years of unceasing struggle against the opposition gunmen,
al-Shabaab -- the military offshoot of the key opposition faction, the Union
of Islamic Courts (UIC) which was removed by the Ethiopian entry.
The Shabaab quit their armed campaign after the succession of the
transitional authorities by the current leader, President Sheik Sharif Sheik
Ahmed.
Recently, however, they have been defying both the new government and their
leaders prompting regional and international concerns.
Nairobi, meanwhile, has pledged to help suppress the militia after they
reportedly threatened to annex part of Kenya's North Eastern Province.
"We must help the government of Somalia tame them once and for all", Kenya's
Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula said on Friday.
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