Since the start of 2007, fighting has killed at least 17,700 civilians and driven more than 1 million from their homes

TO BE NOTED: From Reuters:

"Fighting in Mogadishu for second day

Sat May 23, 2009 3:53am EDT

* African Union calls for sanctions on Eritrea, no-fly zone

* Rebel reinforcements expected in capital

* At least 45 people killed on Friday in heavy clashes

(Recasts with fighting, AU call for sanctions on Eritrea)

By Mohamed Ahmed

MOGADISHU, May 23 (Reuters) - Government forces fought hardline Islamist insurgents on Saturday in Somalia's capital for a second day running to try to regain control of the city.

Heavy fighting killed at least 45 people, more than half of them civilians, and wounded nearly 200 on Friday in one of the bloodiest days of combat in Mogadishu in months.

Neighbouring states and Western governments fear Somalia, which has been mired in civil war for 18 years, could become a haven for militants linked to al Qaeda unless the new government under President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed can defeat them.

Residents said there was sporadic gunfire on Saturday but feared the fighting would intensify after reports of rebel reinforcements coming to confront a government offensive.

Islamist insurgents took up arms in 2007 to drive out Ethiopian troops propping up a Western-backed government which failed to wield control much of the Horn of Africa nation.

The Ethiopians withdrew at the start of 2009 and an Islamist president was elected in neighbouring Djibouti in January. But the insurgents have intensified attacks against the new administration and African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu.

Somalia's government has accused Eritrea of supporting al Shabaab insurgents with planeloads of AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons.



SANCTIONS, NO-FLY ZONE

The African Union stepped up pressure on the Horn of Africa nation late on Friday by calling for U.N. Security Council sanctions, a no fly-zone and sea blockade.

"(The United Nations Security Council should) impose sanctions against all those foreign actors, both within and outside the region, especially Eritrea, providing support to the armed groups," the 53-member body said in a statement.

Eritrea's president denies the charge and blames American agents for spreading lies to blacken his government's name.

Since the start of 2007, fighting has killed at least 17,700 civilians and driven more than 1 million from their homes. About 3 million Somalis survive on emergency food aid.

The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR says 49,000 people have fled fighting in Mogadishu in the past two weeks.

Al Shabaab, which Washington says has close ties to al Qaeda, and Islamist guerrilla group Hizbul Islam have been spearheading attacks on the government, allied militia and African Union peacekeepers.

Until Friday, pro-government forces had not looked strong enough to break Shabaab's grip on parts of Mogadishu.

But last week's defection of a veteran warlord with hundreds of fighters under his command may have prompted Ahmed to order the new offensive.

Defence Minister Mohamed Abdi Gandi said on Friday the fighting would go on until the insurgents were beaten.

Experts say pro-government forces will be hard-pushed to extend their reach to distant provinces, increasing the risk of protracted fighting in a country that has known little but violence and anarchy since a dictator was ousted in 1991.

An important figure in any reconciliation would be hardline opposition leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who ran Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia alongside Ahmed in late 2006.

The two Islamists -- Aweys was always considered the more hardline -- split after Ahmed joined the peace process.

"Somalia has no government we recognise," Aweys told Reuters in an interview on Friday. [ID:nLM978588] "We should not be deceived by Westerners like Sharif."

"We shall defeat the government soon, God willing." (Writing by David Clarke; Editing by Richard Williams)"

U.S. military is “considering attacks on pirate bases on land”

TO BE NOTED: From Enough:

Escalation (?) in Somalia

Posted by Maggie Fick on Apr 13, 2009

A thoughtful post from Elizabeth Dickinson on Foreign Policy’s Passport blog highlights the alarming reports this morning that the U.S. military is “considering attacks on pirate bases on land” and asks:

Does the United States know what they're getting into? Piracy experts have long suggested that the root of the problem is indeed on land. But air strikes on Somali bases would be dangerously close to a U.S. military operation in Somalia -- the kind that the country has avoided since Blackhawk down in 1994.

Let's think hypothetically about what might happen if strikes go ahead. U.S. onland intervention will surely anger al Shabaab, the Islamist militant wing that controls an alarming percentage of Somali territory and is the biggest single threat to Somali stability. Already, the Somali government is struggling to convince the country that its relatively pro-Western stance is for the greater good. That argument will lose all weight if and when the U.S. starts airstrikes. Forget about the government's effectiveness, and forget about any hopes that al Shabaab will disarm. This would fuel the fire. No, we shouldn't kneel to the demands of al Shabaab, but nor should we ignore that their ire will be taken out on the already dilapidated Somali population.

Talk about an escalation.

I would argue that the issue is not whether we ‘anger’ al Shabaab or not, but the fact that such airstrikes would make it easier for al Shabaab to portray themselves as nationalists fighting off foreign intervention, just as they did with earlier Ethiopian incursions. At the end of the day, airstrikes are easy, coming up with a long-term strategy to help Somalia emerge from failed state status is the true task at hand, and robbing al Shabaab of its popular appeal must be part of that strategy.

N.B. Via the New York Times’ Lede blog, a “Live Piracy Map” from the International Maritime Bureau shows that there have been dozens of attacks involving hostages this year, with more than 200 hostages still being held by gangs of pirates in the Gulf of Aden.

John Norris contributed to this post."

"Islam is a religion of peace and stability. It is not a terrorism religion, and al Shabaab is Somalia's biggest threat,"

A Somalia roundup. From Reuters:

"MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Fighting between rival Somali Islamist groups and hardline insurgents on Washington's foreign terrorist list killed dozens of people north of the capital Mogadishu on Sunday, witnesses said.

An Islamist insurgency has been battling government and Ethiopian troops for the past two years, ever since Addis Ababa sent forces to oust the Islamic Courts Union from Mogadishu.

More than 16,000( 16,000 ) civilians have been killed in the insurgency, a million people have been forced from their homes and more than a third( 1/3 ) of the population depend on aid.

But an estimated 3,000 Ethiopians are now withdrawing and some Islamist factions appear to be turning on al Shabaab fighters, a hardline insurgent group that wants to impose a strict version of Islamic law traditionally shunned by Somalis( THEY DON'T WANT IT. GOOD. ).

Analysts say while the Ethiopian withdrawal could usher in a new chapter of violence, it may also be a window of opportunity to bring some Islamist groups into the political process and form a broad, inclusive government.

Witnesses said more than 20 people, mostly fighters, were killed in Sunday's battles between Hareka al Shabaab al Mujahideen, or the Mujahideen Youth Movement, and another Islamist group in Gurael, a trading town in central Somalia.

Sheikh Abdullahi Abu Yusuf, spokesman for the Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca, said its fighters had killed 30 al Shabaab militants and seized most of their weapons.

Resident Ahmed Ali told Reuters by telephone he had seen two dead, including an al Shabaab leader, and said Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca was in control of the town after repulsing an attack.

A doctor at Istarlin hospital in Gurael said it had received 20 wounded on Sunday and more were on their way.

The fighting followed clashes a day earlier between al Shabaab rebels and moderate Islamists in Balad, 30 km (19 miles) north of Mogadishu, on Saturday.

Al Shabaab, which spearheaded attacks last year to become the face of the insurgency, is also battling Ethiopian and government soldiers elsewhere outside the capital.

While the fighting may be a struggle between Islamist groups jostling for position as the Ethiopians go, local militias angry with al Shabaab's acts are reported to be helping.

Washington accuses the group of having close ties to al Qaeda. Al Shabaab has been imposing strict sharia law on the towns it controls in southern Somalia -- banning drinking or films and beheading suspected government collaborators( WAR CRIMES ).

Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca accuses al Shabaab of hunting down and killing its religious leaders and desecrating graves.( THEY ARE AWFUL )

Somalia's interim President Sheikh Aden Madobe said on Saturday that al Shabaab was the biggest threat to stability in the Horn of Africa nation and appealed for international help to build up Somali security forces."

We should hope that al Shabaab does not take full control of Somalia, for the sake of Somalis."

And:

"Which way will Somalia go?

Post a comment (6)

Posted by: David Clarke

Tags: Africa Blog, Somalia, AU, conflict, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Islamic, Islamist, Mogadishu, peacekeeping, Sharia, Somalia, UN, violence

The withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Somalia has left a nation beset by conflict for nearly two decades at a crossroads.

Ethiopia invaded to oust Islamists from the capital, but insurgents still control much of southern Somalia and more hardline groups that worry Washington have flourished during the two-year intervention.

The United Nations is unlikely to send peacekeepers to replace the Ethiopians. Africa is struggling to send more troops to help the 3,500 soldiers from Uganda and Burundi protecting key sites in the capital.

Some analysts say sending an international force would be counterproductive anyway as it would simply replace the Ethiopians as the hated foreign invader and maintain support for the most militant insurgents.

But without more African peacekeepers deploying soon, it seems unlikely the small and largely ineffectual existing force will remain with a weak mandate to face attacks from insurgents.

While a power vacuum may result in even more violence, some Western diplomats in the region hope it will spur the feuding Islamist opposition groups to settle their differences and work towards forming a broad-based, inclusive government.( YES )

They also hope the departure of the Ethiopians will deflate the insurgency and marginalise hardline groups imposing a strict version of Islamic law traditionally shunned by many Somalis( PLEASE ).

African diplomats pushing hard for some sort of political reconciliation say there are more and more signs of “war fatigue” among the various camps and clans.

They are consistently upbeat about Somalia’s prospects, even more so since President Abdullahi Yusuf resigned, and are reaching out to some of the hardline Islamist groups.

Western opposition to some hue of Islamist administration in Somalia — precisely what Ethiopia invaded to quash — seems to be waning as diplomats take a more pragmatic approach to the political and military reality on the ground( TRUE ).

Is there any reason for optimism after 17 years of violence?( YES )

(Picture: Somali al-Shabaab insurgents arrive in capital Mogadishu, Decemcer 27, 2008. REUTERS/Omar Faruk)"

And more:

1 of 1Full Size

By Abdiaziz Hassan

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A group of hardline Islamist fighters on Washington's list of foreign terrorists poses the biggest threat to Somalia and the government needs more support to avoid a crisis, its interim president told Reuters.

Islamist insurgents control much of southern and central Somalia and the government holds only the capital Mogadishu and the seat of parliament, Baidoa. Some 3,000 troops from Ethiopia are withdrawing after propping up the government for two years.

Western diplomats hope the insurgency will fracture when the Ethiopian soldiers finally go, and marginalise the hardline al Shabaab fighters who are imposing a strict version of Islamic law traditionally shunned by Somalis.

Speaking on Saturday in Nairobi, Somali President Sheikh Aden Madobe said the government and moderate Muslim scholars would never let al Shabaab seize power, but without help things could get worse for the Horn of Africa nation.

"Al Shabaab is supported by enemies of peace and doing something that is not Islam. Islam is a religion of peace and stability. It is not a terrorism religion, and al Shabaab is Somalia's biggest threat," Madobe said.( WELL SAID )

The hardline rebel group Hareka al Shabaab al Mujahideen, or the Mujahideen Youth Movement, is fighting Ethiopian and Somali government forces alongside other Islamist groups.

The completion of Ethiopia's pullout could help al Shabaab seize more ground, unless more moderate Islamists turn against them. The United States fears a takeover by al Shabaab and other Islamist militants it sees as linked to al Qaeda.

Madobe, who is Somalia's parliament speaker and interim president since Abdullahi Yusuf quit last month, said Somalia needed more money to build up its security forces.

"Ethiopia has decided to leave and insists on that, and we have not succeeded in forming the troops supposed to take over," he said. "Somalia is tired of chaos."

ELECTION DATE SET

The African Union said in a statement after a summit in Addis Ababa on Saturday that the international community needed to redouble commitments to help get a 10,000-strong Somali force of government and opposition soldiers up and running to support the political process.

The AU has been desperately trying to beef up its existing force of some 3,500 troops from Uganda and Burundi. But despite pledges of extra battalions from those two nations and Nigeria, they have yet to deploy. ( TOO BAD )

Analysts say unless the African Union force is strengthened soon there is a risk those peacekeepers will pull out as well, leaving even more of a security vacuum.

"The survival of this government depends on how its leadership works together, how the Somali people assist it in its task and how the international community supports it," Madobe said, before flying back to Baidoa.

He said the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) would respect the 30-day deadline in a transitional federal charter for selecting a new president.

The AU statement issued later on Saturday said the TFG and the opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia had agreed to hold the election process in Djibouti from January 20-26( GOOD ).

The African Union also said "significant progress" had been made on expanding the parliament to include opposition groups.( GOOD )

Madobe said so far two people had applied for president: Yusuf Azhari, a former envoy to Kenya and adviser to former president Abdullahi Yusuf, and Mohamed Deeq Abdimadar Barqadle, a member of the Somali diaspora who has been living in Sweden."

If the international community focuses on Somalia, there is some hope.

"One tribe, one religion, one language, one culture — but they don’t see what unites them, they only see what divides them"

From the NY Times:

"Somalia’s Fate Still Unclear After Leader Quits

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

NAIROBI, Kenya — Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the cantankerous president of beleaguered Somalia, resigned Monday. The question now is, will it make a difference?

Could it be the death knell of Somalia’s transitional government, whose zone of control is down to a few city blocks in a country nearly as big as Texas? Or will it be the government’s saving grace?

For weeks, Western diplomats, Somali elders and United Nations officials have been crossing their fingers that Mr. Yusuf, widely blamed for trying to block a peace deal with Somalia’s increasingly powerful Islamist insurgents, would step aside.

Mr. Yusuf, one of Somalia’s first warlords, never seemed able to shake his warlord ways. Western diplomats have accused him of favoring his clan at the expense of all others, enabling corruption and too often trying to solve knotty political problems, which called for a little finesse, with the business end of a machine gun.

Kenyan officials even threatened sanctions against him this month, calling him “an obstacle to peace” and warning that unless he changed tack, he would no longer be welcome in Kenya. That was a serious threat because Mr. Yusuf, who claims to be 74 but is widely believed to be several years older, has gone to Kenya several times for lifesaving medical treatment for an ailing liver.

In stepping down, Mr. Yusuf said he could not unite Somalia’s feuding leaders, news agencies reported, and as soon as he resigned, the United Nations’ top official for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said that “a new page of Somalia history is now open.”

But what will be written on it?

The scramble to succeed Mr. Yusuf could set off an ugly clan-based political melee. By contrast, the prime minister and other top Somali officials could give the post to a moderate Islamist leader, who might be the unifying figurehead that Somalia so desperately needs.

Or it may simply be too late because so much of the country has already fallen into the hands of powerful, hard-line Islamists who behead opponents and have, on at least one occasion, stoned to death a teenage girl who said she had been raped.( GOOD LORD )

Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst at the International Crisis Group, which tracks conflicts worldwide, said Mr. Yusuf’s resignation was “good news” because “it may create the opportunity to put a more conciliatory figure in charge of the government.”

That figure could be someone like Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a well-respected, moderate Islamic cleric who has struggled to walk the tightrope between negotiating with the transitional government and being dismissed as a sellout.

Earlier this year, Sheik Sharif’s faction signed a power-sharing agreement with the transitional government, despite the president’s objections, and many Somalis are hoping the deal will stick.

“If that power-sharing deal is applied, it will help a lot,” said Muhammad Dheere, a pharmacist in Mogadishu, Somalia’s battle-scarred capital. “Then the other problems could finish soon.”

Somalia certainly has a lot of them. Famine is steadily creeping toward millions of people. Pirates off Somalia’s coast have netted countless headlines and as much as $100 million in ransoms. Violence is rising again and finding new forms, with Islamist factions now fighting one another to take over the areas the government no longer controls.

Over the weekend, in two towns, a moderate Islamist group routed the Shabab, one of the nation’s most fearsome and radical Islamist militias. But the Shabab were fighting back fiercely on Monday, and they also took over a United Nations food distribution office, imperiling a critical lifeline.

The thousands of Ethiopian troops who have been in Somalia for two years are threatening to leave any day now. If they do, the transitional government may have no one to protect it from Islamist insurgents, except a relatively small contingent of African Union peacekeepers( LIKE IN THE CONGO? ) and a few ragtag Somali militiamen.

It will not be easy finding someone qualified — and willing — to serve as president, considering all this. Somalia’s transitional government, created four years ago (with Mr. Yusuf at the helm) as a temporary solution until Somalia could hold elections, is carefully balanced on a formula that divides power among Somalia’s four major clans.

One considerable strike against Sheik Sharif is that he is not only from the same clan, but from the same subclan as the prime minister, who is well regarded and not believed to be going anywhere.

Many people expect that the next president could come from the same clan as Mr. Yusuf, to minimize clan friction. The speaker of Parliament will take over the presidency for one month until Parliament elects a new president.

Yet, after nearly 18 years of unbridled anarchy, many Somalis have lost hope.( WHO COULD BLAME THEM? )

“Somalis are a God-forsaken nation,” said Abdirizak Adam Hassan, a Canadian-Somali who used to work with Mr. Yusuf and is now looking for a job. “They are so oblivious to what is happening. One tribe, one religion, one language, one culture — but they don’t see what unites them, they only see what divides them.

“Maybe on the outside, to the international community, the resignation will matter,” he said. “But not on the inside.”

Mohammed Ibrahim contributed reporting from Mogadishu, Somalia."

This is a terribly difficult and unending situation. How often are we encountering that now?

"Hussein wants to include them and marginalise what he sees as a small rump of hardliners"

From the FT, an expected event in Somalia:

"Somali President Yusuf resigns

BAIDOA, Somalia, Dec 29 - Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf resigned on Monday, ending a deadlock at the top of the interim government and paving the way for a new administration in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation.

Yusuf told parliament that speaker Sheikh Aden Madobe would take over and blamed the international community for failing to support the government. Yusuf flew home to Puntland, Somalia’s semi-autonomous northern region.

A surge in sea piracy in the busy Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean off Somalia has seen some 110 ships reported to have been attacked and 42 hijacked this year. Fourteen of the hijacked vessels are still being held hostage by the pirates, along with 240 crew, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

”As I promised when you elected me on October 14, 2004, I would stand down if I failed to fulfil my duty, I have decided to return the responsibility you gave me,” Yusuf said.

The president of Somalia’s fractured, Western-backed government had become increasingly unpopular at home and abroad and was blamed by Washington, Europe and African neighbours for stalling a U.N.-hosted peace process.

Diplomats welcomed Yusuf’s decision, saying that with his departure, a planned withdrawal of Ethiopian troops and growing opposition to hardline al Shabaab Islamists there was now real hope for political progress in Somalia( PLEASE ).

A two-year Islamist insurgency controls most of southern and central Somalia outside the capital Mogadishu and Baidoa, the seat of parliament, but it is a fractious group.

Al Shabaab, which is on Washington’s list of terrorist foreign groups, has been imposing a strict version of Islamic law in towns it controls, but has faced fierce opposition from moderate Islamists in the past week.

The moderate Sunni Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca has pledged to oust al Shabaab from Somalia, accusing them of killing religious leaders and desecrating graves, acts they say are against Islamic teachings.

ISLAMIST CLASHES

There was fierce fighting between the two groups again on Monday after Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca seized two towns from al Shabaab in central Somalia over the weekend.

”There is a definite groundswell within Somalia against the al Shabaab and with Yusuf taking his militia and troops with him, and the Ethiopeans going, who are the al Shabaab left to fight? said a Western diplomat in the region.

”If the new parliament is persuaded to be made inclusive and selection process stands up to scrutiny, then there is a real hope,” he said, adding that Yusuf should be given some credit for doing the ”right thing”.

Yusuf had been at loggerheads with Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein for a while over the government’s composition and the two were also at odds over including moderate Islamists in the peace process.

Hussein wants to include them and marginalise what he sees as a small rump of hardliners( WORTH A TRY ). Yusuf’s decision to sack Hussein this month was not recognised by regional nations and they imposed sanctions on the president for hindering the process.

Analysts said the parliament speaker should remain in place until a new more-inclusive government has been formed, and then a new president should be elected."

This is a hopeful sign, but no more.