From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue Mar 16 2010 - 16:43:25 EST
U.S. getting snared again in Somalia
Published: March. 16, 2010 at 1:14 PM
MOGADISHU, Somalia, March 16 (UPI) -- Despite U.S. reluctance to get
entangled again in the free-for-all conflict in Somalia, Washington is
slowly being caught up in fighting Islamist militants in the lawless Horn of
Africa state.
The United States is has been arming the beleaguered Transitional Federal
Government penned up in war-ravaged Mogadishu on Somalia's Indian Ocean
coast since it was set up, with Ethiopian military support, in December
2006.
Now, as the TFG gets ready for a long-delayed offensive against the
Islamists, the United States is getting ready to provide air support and
says the fledgling Africa Command is training government troops as well.
The Americans view Somalia -- along with increasingly lawless Yemen across
the Gulf of Aden -- as a haven for <http://www.upi.com/topic/al-Qaida/>
al-Qaida and its fellow travelers that could threaten both the Arabian
Peninsula and the Horn of Africa.
That makes Somalia difficult to ignore, although memories of the ill-fated
Operation Restore Hope in 1992-95, a U.N.-led humanitarian intervention that
became a shooting war, militate against another incursion.
The Americans got caught up in Somalia's clan wars. On Oct. 3, 1993, 18
Special Forces troops were killed in a 17-hour battle with heavily armed
militiamen in the streets of Mogadishu in which two helicopters were shot
down.
The triumphant militia fighters dragged some of the bodies through the
streets to humiliate the United States.
It was the longest and bloodiest battle fought by Americans since Vietnam
and it made the United States averse to foreign interventions and heavy
casualties for years to come.
U.S. forces were withdrawn in August 1995, three years after the operation
began.
It was about that time that al-Qaida, then largely unknown in the West,
began infiltrating Somalia, primarily to fight the Americans. Osama bin
Laden claims his men were involved in the October 1993 fighting, in which
hundreds of Somalis were also killed.
These days, U.S. intelligence maintains that al-Qaida is heavily involved in
Somalia's chaos and is allied with al-Shebab, the main Islamist armed group
fighting the Western-backed TFG.
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama does not want to get
dragged into another war while it is fighting in Afghanistan and trying to
withdraw from Iraq.
But apart from the problems of overstretching U.S. military capabilities,
the main worry concerning Somalia is antagonizing the country's war-weary
people and driving them into al-Qaida's arms.
This is a dilemma the Americans also face in Yemen and in Pakistan, and it
is in this regard that the memories of the 1993 carnage in Mogadishu,
enshrined in the book and movie entitled "Black Hawk Down," are sharpest.
"I think the Obama administration would rather the Somalia just went away,"
said Bronwyn Bruton of New York's Council of Foreign Relations, for whom she
has just released a report on Somalia.
She says that Washington cannot afford to ignore what's happening on
Somalia, but believes that U.S. support for the TFG will remain limited and
won't involve boots on the ground.
"The United States has no desire for a sequel of 'Black Hawk Down' coming
out in theaters," said Bayless Parsley, Africa analyst with the global
security consultancy Stratfor.
Meantime, as the TFG musters its forces for the push against al-Shebab and
its clan allies, the Americans are seeking to coordinate their efforts to
provide military to the TFG with the European Union.
This is being done primarily through the Africa Command, established in 2008
to oversee U.S. military operations in Africa, primarily training and
non-lethal operations.
However, there is a growing suspicion in Africa that Africom's primary
mission is to protect energy resources which the United States wants and the
new command's involvement in Somalia could point to a more hands-on presence
than has been apparent so far.
On March 4, U.S. Army Gen. Richard J. Sherlock, Africom's director of
strategy, plans and programs, visited Brussels and informed members of the
EU Council and the European Commission that the command launched a training
program for non-commissioned officers in the TFG's armed forces.
He disclosed that the Pentagon is also planning to train TFG troops and
those of the 4,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, known
as Amisom, in coping with improvised explosive devices.
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