Ethiopia’s incursion into Somalia could stoke war
July 21, 2006 (NAIROBI) — Ethiopian troops in Somalia could give the struggling Somali government its only fighting chance of stopping an Islamic militia from taking control of most of the anarchic Horn of Africa country. But it could be just the pretext Islamic militants need to build public support for a guerrilla war.
Residents living in the only town controlled by Somalia’s U.N.-backed government reported seeing hundreds of Ethiopian troops arrive Thursday in armored vehicles laden with equipment. For supporters of the government, it was a relief after rival Islamic militias advanced within striking distance of the defenseless town, Baidoa, on Wednesday before pulling back.
Ethiopian and government officials quickly denied that Ethiopian troops were in Somalia, but their denials were carefully vague, and the deployment came just a day after Ethiopia’s information minister vowed to crush the Islamic militants if they attempted to take Baidoa, 240 kilometers (150 miles) northwest of Mogadishu.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991, when warlords overthrew the government of Mohamed Siad Barre and divided the country into clan-based fiefdoms. The current transitional government was formed in neighboring Kenya two years ago, but has failed to take control of the territory. It is beset be internal rivalries and distrusted by some Somalis because it includes warlords blamed for past violence.
In the last few months, Islamic militants have defeated the warlords and established Islamic courts to administer much of the country.
The Islamic group, an umbrella for moderate as well as radical voices, is led by Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, an elderly Islamic extremist who the United States has accused of being tied to al-Qaida. Aweys has repeatedly called for an Islamic government as the only way to unite and stabilize Somalia.
On Thursday, his second-in-command said the Ethiopian deployment could lead to holy war.
“We will declare jihad if the Ethiopian government refuses to withdraw their troops,” Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed said.
In a recent Internet posting, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden urged Somalis to support the militants and warned nations not to send troops here.
Aweys has promised to take part in peace talks organized by the Arab League in Khartoum, Sudan on Saturday. But his rival for the last 20 years, Abdullahi Yusuf, is the president of the transitional government and has refused to meet with him.
The standoff between Yusuf, a staunch secular leader who has condemned radical Islam, and Aweys, who calls the transitional government illegitimate, has led both sides to seek greater military strength in anticipation of a civil war.
The Islamic militias have collected the weapons surrendered by the former warlords, making them the most powerful force in southern Somalia.
Yusuf’s calls for foreign peacekeepers to protect his administration have gone unanswered, leaving his government divided and vulnerable.
“This is a very weak government, not only in the military sense, but in every aspect,” said Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. “There is no administration, each minister is a loose cannon, and it’s not clear they even communicate with each other.”
In the absence of his own force, Yusuf has apparently chosen to rely on his longtime ally, Ethiopia, for protection and to give him greater leverage at the bargaining table.
A regional diplomat who has worked on the Somalia problem said the Ethiopian troop presence could pave the way for another, more acceptable peacekeeping force in the country. Once Ethiopian troops are in place, the government can insist on other peacekeepers to replace them in return for their withdrawal, the diplomat said, saying the Arab League, Algeria or Morocco could respond under such a scenario.
Somalia invaded Ethiopia in 1978 in an attempt to grab land occupied by ethnic Somalis. Since then, Ethiopia has attempted to influence Somali politics to prevent another invasion, including backing Yusuf when he started an insurrection against Barre in the 1980s.
Ethiopia sent troops into Somalia in 1993 and 1996 to crush Islamic militants attempting to establish a religious government.
Aweys was one of the leaders of those mid-90s Islamic movements and was forced to flee to his clan stronghold in central Somalia, where he slowly reconstituted his influence before emerging as a major Islamic leader in 2005.
Anti-Ethiopia sentiment still runs high in much of Muslim Somalia, which is why the government and Ethiopia, a mostly Christian nation, want to keep the troop deployment quiet. Yusuf’s reliance on Ethiopia appears to make him beholden to the country’s traditional enemy and hurts his legitimacy.
If the competition for power should become violent, there is little doubt that Ethiopia has the superior fighting force. Much of the Ethiopian military has trained with U.S. troops and have advanced, Eastern European armored vehicles with long-range weapons.
Some Somali Islamic commanders were trained in Afghanistan, but their troops carry only light machine guns and rely on modified civilian trucks mounted with anti-aircraft weapons for transportation. The Islamic militants would most likely launch a guerrilla war similar to those in Iraq and Afghanistan in the event of open conflict.
(AP/ST)