Somalia
Bodies of dead civilians are lying unclaimed in the streets of Mogadishu, said Faysal Gabanow in Ethiopias Sub-Saharan Informer. The ramshackle hospitals are overflowing with wounded. The carnage in Somalia over the past two weeks is the worst since the U.N. peacekeepers pulled out in 1995. This is not the same old skirmishing among rival warlords that has kept Somalia in anarchy for so long. The fighting this time is between two clearly defined groups: an Islamic militia and an alliance of secular warlords.
The militia is a front for al Qaida, said Abdul Hassan Ali in Kenyas The Standard. It is masquerading as a judicial system and calling itself the Union of Islamic Courts. Nobody should be fooled. This union clearly is sponsored by al-Ittihad, a wing of al Qaida trained in Afghanistan. One of al-Ittihads self-styled sheikhs, Ahmad Muhammad Abdulle, admitted as much when he said the Islamic Courts were targeted at anybody opposed to the holy jihad led by Osama bin Laden, a humble servant of the Holy Prophet.
The warlords are a front toofor the U.S., said Massimo Alberizzi in Italys Corriere della Sera. A new U.N. report accuses Italy, Eritrea, and other countriesbut not the U.S.of violating the arms embargo against Somalia. Our sources, though, say that the U.N. had overwhelming evidence that the U.S. was the prime source of the funds that the warlords used to buy weapons. But the Bush administration threatened to veto the release of the report unless the U.N. agreed to erase all mention of U.S. involvement. Still, plenty of clues make it obvious that the U.S. is heavily invested in the battle. Gen. William F. Garrison, the Delta Force commander in the U.N. peacekeeping operation in Somalia in the early 1990s, has recently been spotted visiting warlords in Mogadishu. And even Porter Goss stopped by this spring, before he stepped down as director of the CIA.
HornAfrik
