TASEK PAUH blogspot

Labels: Luar Negeri, Somalia

MOGADISHU, 21 March 2007 (AFP) - Heavy fighting erupted Wednesday in the Somali capital leading to the death of at least 14 people in an escalation of violence which also saw angry residents attacking the bodies of dead soldiers.

Residents burned the bodies of two soldiers and dragged another through the streets recalling the similar fate of US troops in a failed UN-backed peace operation in the early 1990s.

Heavy weaponry duels across southern Mogadishu killed six uniformed soldiers and eight civilians after insurgents opened fire on former defence ministry headquarters where Ethiopian troops, backing the Somali government, are based.

Hundreds of angry civilians celebrated in the Baruwa neighbourhood as they burned the bodies of two of the dead soldiers. The crowd shouted: "You and Ethiopians will die", " Down, Down with Somali troops", and "We will burn you alive".

Nearby, a woman carrying a machete shouted obscenities against Ethiopian and Somali troops while stepping on the body of another dead soldier being dragged by a rope tied to his foot, an AFP correspondent said. It was unclear if the soldiers were Somali or Ethiopian. more..

Labels: Luar Negeri, Somalia

An Ethiopian flag erected in Mogadishu annoys many Somalis

Aweys Osman Yusuf

Mogadishu. February 26 (Sh.M.Network) - Inhabitants closer to Ethiopian military bases in the Somali capital Mogadishu have cut an Ethiopian flag to pieces on Monday morning.

Residents reported that the Ethiopian flag was erected three areas near the Ethiopian bases in Mogadishu. Witnesses have told Shabelle reporter Raage that people were annoyed by Somali words written in the flag indicating that Somalia is the sixth region of Ethiopia.

Ethiopian officers who spoke with Shabelle however denied they erected the flag or wrote such words on it. They have pointed out that people who wanted to create disturbances between the Ethiopians and Somalis were behind the incident.

Some of the Ethiopian soldiers who spoke Somalia said they did not come to capture Somalia. “We came here to assist the Somalia transitional government,” they said.

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia

Somali president refuses talks with Islamist leaders
Aweys Osman Yusuf

Mogadishu, February 6 (Sh.M.Network) - The Somali government has repeated its refusal to reconcile with Somalia’s routed Islamists leaders.

According to Yemen news agency, President Abdullahi Yusuf said his government would never negotiate with either hardline or moderate Islamists.

He said his government believes that Islamist leaders are criminals who should be tried for their crimes. “They are responsible for the instability and destruction in the country, so my government will neither negotiate nor pardon these criminals,” he said.

Asked if Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, the Islamist executive council leader, would be exceptional to government non-pardoning rule against hardline Islamists, Yusuf said Sheik Ahmed was leading “axis of evil”. “He is as same as the others,” he said.

Mr. Yusuf has also asserted that a group of “terrorists” are responsible for the series of nightly mortar attacks against the government and Ethiopian military positions in the capital. “These guys believe if I am killed, my government will collapse. If I die, my government will still function,” he said.

The president has revealed in a speech he gave in the Somali parliament on 31 January during a ceremony in which the new speaker Sheik Aden Mdobe was inaugurated that the government was planning to organize a national reconciliation conference with the exclusion of the defeated Union of Islamic Courts.

The Western nations, including the United States, have pressed the Somali government to hold a national reconciliation conference in which all elements from the society and moderate Islamists should include, although the government is definitely stubborn to sit before Islamists and have a bargaining over a unity government.

Mr. Yusuf said Islamists were always planning to assassinate a number of Somali officials including him, the premier Ali Mohammed Gedi and the president of the breakaway republic of Somaliland.

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia

Mogadishu, February 4 (Sh.M.Network) - Yemeni government has denied it was engaged in brokering negotiations between Somalia’s top Islamist leader, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, in its country and the Ethiopian president Girma Wolde.

Abu Bakar al-Baqri, Yemeni foreign minister, has firmly refuted that his government was endeavoring to mediate between the Islamist executive council leader, Sheik Sharif, who is reportedly in Yemen now after he flew from Kenya where Kenyan authorities have released in early this week, and ethiopian presiden, Girma Wolde.

He said the negotiations should be open between Somalia’s political leaders and other influential elements in the society to achieve a unity government. “The Somali government and the Islamic Courts should talk and resolve their differences,” he said.

Sheik Sharif, who surrendered to Kenyan authority near two weeks ago, has reportedly reached Yemen and joined other senior Islamists already in Yemen.

Yesterday Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf has told the interim parliament that he would organize a national reconciliation conference in which, he said, all elements including religious leaders and Somalis in the diaspora would take part.

“Why are you bringing the Islamic courts to the issue of the reconciliation? Islamists have splintered and are no where to exist,” he said.

AU delegation

Meanwhile an African Union delegation has spent the night in Mogadishu.

The delegation arrived in Mogadishu on Saturday to evaluate the situation in Somalia and decide where in the country, the capital in particular, the Africa peacekeepers should be deployed.

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia

Kavkaz, February 4 - The entire Mogadishu residents was relieved last night as they heard the voice of Sheikh Shariif Sheikh Ahmed, their leader for the last 6 months. Almost all of the major radio stations such as the BBC, alJazeera and Shabelle done detailed interviews with him.

(Picture right to left - Abu Quteyba, Sheikh Janaqow, Sheikh Shariif, Islamic scholar Sheikh Umar Liman, Sheikh Abdukhadir. and the son of Umar Adaani).

Firstly the sheikh spoke about his coming to Kenya stating that the Kenyan government and other Arab friendly nations (possibly Yemen, Qatar) was in daily contact with his group as they left Mogadishu, and has consulted the other leaders before he went ahead with the meeting with the Americans and Kenyans. He further said that he did not surrender to any one nor he feared for his safety as the Kenyans and other diplomats including the Americans welcomed him and held several meetings with him. He urged the Somalis to reconcile and advised the resistance to ovoid targeting civilian populated areas, he said his demand was still that the entire Ethiopians should leave the country before any meetings takes place with the puppet government.

He also stated that the Americans understood a need to build a government who is chosen by the people so there can be a lasting peace, he said that "any foreign troops will only fuel violence and would not solve anything as the Americans could not solve anything during the 1990s peace mission"

He informed the Islamic courts supporters that the air strike did not harm any of the leadership and they were sending their greetings to Mogadishu and were in constant communications with them.

Asked by the media whether he would come to Mogadishu the sheikh replied that "he would not beg of any one if he wanted to come to Mogadishu"

More violence followed today in Mogadishu as gunmen killed a senior police colonel in the city centre and more former Islamic fighters stream back into the city as the Ethiopians withdraw, Mogadishu resident told KC that some of the senior Islamic courts members returned to the city and where in a "planning activity".

The city of Jowhar was is in chaos the last few days as the "new" administration were held up in a hotel as the former governor’s gangs are on a continuing rampage on the city looting every public building in the city.

Most of the residence in Mogadishu as well as many Somalis abroad showed their thumbs up to Sheikh Shariif as they phoned in local radio stations in support of him. Many Somali religious leaders abroad most from the UK were making their way to Yemen once they heard the Sheikh was on his way to that country.

Sheikh Shariif also said he had no knowledge of any American soldiers captured by his group nor was his life was in any danger, he praised the resistance and told the world the no country would accept an invasion and would always resist. KC

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia

Kavkaz, February 2 - It has been confirmed Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed is on his way to Yemen tonight as more fighting is under way in Mogadishu and Baidoa, speaking to Reuters. Sheikh Shariif confirmed he was 100% in good health and was heading to Yemen with out answering further questions. It appears that one of the conditions set by the Sheikh Sharif during the negotiations with the Americans has been met, earlier reports leaked to the press by some Arab & EU diplomats indicated that Sheikh Sharif laid conditions for the release of captured American soldiers in south Somalia in the Jubba regions, one of the conditions was for him to be allowed to go to a safer country.

Meanwhile in Mogadishu, gunmen fired at least 9 mortar rounds into the main seaport as the capital experienced its heaviest fighting so far, in return the occupation and puppet troops encamped there fired at a refugee camp close to the sea port, in the other areas of Mogadishu heavy fighting's between gunmen and ethiopians as well as clan fighting in other areas left at least 7 people dead.

In the bay and Bakool region (Baidoa) a warlord's gunmen angry at the election of the "new parliament" speaker sprayed bullets at demonstrators who where rallying in support of the "new elected" speaker Adan Madobe, Adan Madobe a former warlord who is allied to the "president" and Ethiopia "replaced" the so call "parliament" speaker Sharif Hassan.

Many Islamic loyalist parliamentarians and Shariif Hassan who are self exiled in De Jabuti rejected the election saying the puppet "parliament" is being controlled by the ethiopians. KC

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia, U.S.

Aweys Osman Yusuf

Addis Ababa 01, Feb.07 (Sh.M.Network) - The United States believes that Somalia’s hard-line Islamists forcefully driven out of the country by government troops backed by Ethiopian military forces may reorganize themselves in Saudi Arabia, Eritrea and Yemen, Jendayi Frazer, US assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said on Wednesday.

Speaking to the Financial Times in Addis Ababa, Ms Frazer said it was too early to tell who among the Islamist leadership had survived Ethiopia's invasion last month and subsequent US air strikes on alleged affiliates of al-Qaeda.

"It is going to take some time for the fog of war to clear up and we have an ability to see who is still operating and how they are operating," she said.

But she was "very concerned" that extremist elements from among the defeated Islamists were "trying to reconstitute themselves either out of Saudi Arabia or Eritrea", and that international jihadist networks would see this as an opportunity.

"We have to engage with the Saudi government and their services to try to prevent that from happening as well as engage regionally."

Ms Frazer described Eritrea, with whom the US has deteriorating relations, as a "source of regional instability".

The news comes as Al-Khaleej newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates reported the US ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, was negotiating with Islamist leader in the Kenyan government custody over the release of 11 US soldier reportedly seized in southern Somalia.

Ethiopia, the US's major ally in East of Africa, alleges that Eritrea supported hardline elements within the ousted Islamists by supplying them with arms, fighters and military advice.

"Eventually Eritrea will see the limits of its actions to destabilize the Horn," said Ms Frazer.

Ms Frazer said the key to ensuring Somalia did not provide a haven for international terrorist networks now lay with the Transitional Federal Government, which emerged from peace talks in Kenya in 2004.

"They have to do it by reaching out. They have to do it through inclusive dialogue," she said.

According to Al-Khaleej news agency, Mr. Ranneberger has asked the Islamist leader in the custody of Kenyan authority to order the release the US soldiers who were seized during heavy ground skirmishes between the Islamists and the American soldiers accompanied by Ethiopian troops nearly three weeks ago in southern Somalia.

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia

Sheikh Shariif sets conditions to release 11 US soldiers seized in Somalia

Kavkaz, February 1 - Somalia's routed Islamic leader Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed and the US ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, have come to bidding over the release of 11 US occupation solder reportedly captured by the Islamic force in southern Somalia.

According to Al-Khaleej news agency based in Emirates quoting DPA news agency reliable diplomatic sources indicate that at least the two men have had four rounds of talks over the American soldiers in the captivity of Islamic force in southern jungles of the war-torn country, Somalia.

Mr. Ranneberger has asked the Islamic leader in the custody of Kenyan authority to order the release the US occupation soldiers who were seized during heavy ground skirmishes between the Somalia mujahiddeen and the American soldiers accompanied by Ethiopian occupation troops. Sources say the incident took place nearly three weeks ago in southern Somalia.

According to Al-Khaleej, Sheik Sharif stipulated the release of the soldiers with several conditions. He said:

"Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia should be withdrawn immediately, America should halt the military action in south the country, I should be transferred from Kenya to another safe country (probably Yemen) and the United States should tell the world that 11 of its marine soldiers were seized in Somalia."

Sheik Sharif said if these conditions were fulfilled, they would facilitate the release of the American occupation soldiers, asserting he would always feel insecure and unsafe as long as he lingers in Kenya.

Mr. Ranneberger, who was campaigning for the so call "African peacekeeping force" to Somalia, has always told the world press that moderate Islamic leader like Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed should be inclusive in the Somali so call "transitional government" that is now formally in control of the country with the help of the thousands of Ethiopian occupation troops.

In further development the American are once again claming the Islamic Courts of regrouping in other countries, blaming Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Eritrea, they have singled out Eritrea for "destabilizing" the region. Agencies

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia, U.S.

Kavkav Center- 26 January 2007 - Several weeks ago Islamic affiliated website qaadisiya.com reported that the American troops where killed and captured once they landed in the Jubba region of Somalia following the air strikes by the Americans, the pentagon and the puppet government immediately rejected the Muslims claims.

But the claims has once again re-emerged this morning when one of the Arab league diplomats who was mediating between sheikh Shariif and the American ambassador in Nairobi spoke to the Al-sharq news paper from Qatar. Revealing in details the conversation in the meeting, he noted that the ambassador was demanding information on the missing troops claiming that the Islamic forces had taken them prisoners or some possibility might be that they had also fallen into the hands of tribal militia in the wooded regions.

He also noted that the ambassador was asking sheikh Shariif to return to Somalia and end the insurgency promising him that a new government will be formed free from the warlords.

How ever further insurgency was under way through out the week, on Thursday heavy explosion caused by mortars was heard around the whole Madiina district of Mogadishu causing the people to flee, Islamic sources said they attacked a puppet police station after they heard that several mosque clerics where being held there, In Kismayo 2 Ethiopian troops were killed and several wounded when gun men armed with pistols started firing on them, the gunmen forth went on to take the klashnakovs from the dead soldiers and the wounded.

In another development in Mogadishu a new organization known as "the people's resistance movement in the land of the Immigration" claimed to have killed many of the puppet government spies who have flooded the city after the capture.

In Jeabuti Sheikh Abu Mansuur who was the second head of the security department in the Islamic courts sent an audio tape to Islamic affiliated websites urging the people to not except colonization by the Ethiopian and the Americans and to resist, he further said that the Somali people are tested this by Allah and they have to overcome the test.

Many Somali people blame the Islamic court's security department for the failure of the war accusing them of miscalculating the level of force that the Ethiopians and Americans were prepared to use once the war breaks out and also going to Hajj when the war was about to begin. The Ethiopian with American air and naval support sent almost 25,000 troops and 100s of tanks, artillery, vehicles and also compact jets and helicopters against the 5,000 lightly armed Islamic forces.

The people praised sheikh Shariif for deciding not to take the enemy inside the cities which would have been catastrophic for the civilian population who have experienced 16 years of savage violence. KC

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia

The US ambassador to Kenya has held talks with a key leader of Somalia's Islamic courts movement to urge him to have his supporters renounce violence.

US officials said Michael Ranneberger met Sharif Ahmed (picture left) in Nairobi, where he has been in the protective custody of the Kenyan authorities since turning himself in.

Details of the meeting were not clear, but Jennifer Barnes, a US embassy spokeswoman, said earlier in the week that the envoy would urge Ahmed to ask his supporters to avoid violence and to support the development of an inclusive government in Somalia.

Ahmed is head of the executive wing of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) in Somalia.

Mohammed Adow, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Somalia, said: "Diplomats have always seen the need for dialogue and national reconciliation to inject some energy into the peace process - Ahmed who led the union is seen as crucial for any dialogue to go ahead."

On Monday, Ali Mohamed Gedi, the Somali prime minister, welcomed the Islamic courts leaders back in Somalia in order to participate in talks aimed at forming an all-inclusive administration in Somalia. alJazeera and Agencies

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia

Kavkaz, January 24 - Mogadishu Airport came under attack when suspected mojaheds attacked the airport with at least two mortar rounds killing one person and injuring at least 5 people, the airport was full of people after an arrival of UN plane carrying German officials and the prime minister was expected to land at the airport this morning.

Meanwhile further south in the Jubba regions, a Pentagon official spoke to the Washington post today to confirm further air strike was carried out in the south of Somalia were there is a large presence of the Islamic fighters, puppet "government" did not confirm the strikes and said they would look into the reports.

For the first time in as many weeks the Islamic courts have issued a press release to Muslims affiliated websites. experts of the press release is translated in English:

"We would like to inform the Somali people that the entire heads of the Islamic courts are safe and well, today Somalia has suffered an aggression from three different places"

1. America with its intelligence, training, funding, helped the enemy to occupy our land, they also added with war from air, land and sea.

2. The enemy Ethiopian that was sent to conquer the land

3. Kenya who helped with sanctions on political, border activities and handing Ethiopian opposition prisoners to the Ethiopian enemy.

"We would like to tell the Somali people they are under foreign colonization and we in the Islamic courts and every individual is our duty to fight these modern occupation"

"We are announcing to the Somali people that we no longer recognize the puppet "government" who have brought Somalia historic enemy to our lands"

"We in the Islamic court are still fighting in the Jubba regions and the attacks that are taking place in Mogadishu"

"We will continue to fight with our wealth and soul until our land is free from enemy occupation and colonization". KC

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia

Kavkaz, January 23 - Many of the Islamic Courts officials are in Kenya under protection from the security intelligence and government officials who are ethnic Somalis, this include the Islamic Courts scholar Sheikh Nuur Malin, Businessman Omar Adaani and the Islamic Court's head for reconciliation Sheikh Hassan Dheere.

Well known ethnic Somalis in the Kenyan government and business are know to be sympathetic to the Islamic force and arranged for many of the Muslims to come to Kenya.

Meanwhile a well known Kenyan MP Farah Ma'alim stated the Sheikh Shariif did not surrender but he was a guest of the Kenyan government. After intense effort to make contact with Sheikh Shariif by the Kenyan and the American, government officials say the Sheikh arrived on the border at 7am and was whisked away by a helicopter waiting for him.

Kenyans and Americans fear the conflict in Somalia could spill into the whole of the horn of Africa region which is a majority Muslim. The MP said that Americans are eager to make peace with Sheikh Shariif since most of the Ethiopian occupation troops have left Somalia and the rest are preparing to leave the country.

Meanwhile so call "African peacekeepers troops" of about 5,000 are said to arrive in Mogadishu to protect the puppet "government" leaving most of the country with out any effective control.

Kenyan officials earlier said Sheikh Shariif was in a hotel under the protection of American and western officials but the American deny this, many government of Somali ethnic group are sympathetic to the Islamic Court and have good contacts with them, this led to making contacts with the Islamic leader to try to salvage any hopes of preventing the growing insurgency under way.

Meanwhile in Mogadishu heavy fighting took place between puppet troops with Ethiopian occupation forces and Mogadishu residence in the animal market after a dawn raid by the occupation troops to snatch two well known men who they accuse of supporting the mujahiddeen, when neighbors heard of the presence of the troops people took their weapons from their houses and headed for confrontations that was taking place, 7 people are confirmed dead in the fighting.

In Dhusa Mareb further north of the country residence confirmed the entire occupation and puppet troops that was stationed in the city left by dawn after coming under fire in the previous nights. KC and Agencies

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia

Mogadishu, 22 January - A senior leader of the Union of Islamic Courts has surrendered to Kenyan authorities on the border with Somalia, Kenyan officials have said.

Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed (picture left), chairman of the Executive Council of Islamic Courts, was reportedly detained with three other Somalis on Sunday.

"They captured him in the Liboi area. He's under US protection," the Somali intelligence official told Reuters news agency.

Ahmed is considered a moderate in the movement that was forced out of Mogadishu and southern Somalia by Ethiopian and Somali government forces.

Liboi is a Kenya border crossing near the southern tip of Somalia, where Ethiopian and Somali government troops have been hunting for Islamic courts fighters.

Kenyan officials have said that Ahmed has been flown to Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, and is being held in a hotel.

National reconciliation

"He is the public face of the Islamic courts and is increasing being seen as crucial to any national reconciliation effort in Somalia ... this is why, diplomatic sources say, he is being held in a hotel and this is why he is under US protection," Mohammed Adow, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Mogadishu, said.

An official with the US embassy in Nairobi denied reports that Washington had any involvement in Ahmed's presence in Kenya.

"The United States is not holding or interrogating or protecting Sheikh Sharif," the official told the AFP news agency. "We were not involved in his capture or surrender."

The United States sees Ahmed as a moderate in the Islamic Courts movement which formerly vowed to topple the Somali government and to extend its system of Islamic laws across all Somalia.

Michael Ranneberger, the US ambassador to Kenya, whose brief includes Somalia, met him in Nairobi last year after the Islamic Courts seized Mogadishu to urge them to practise moderation. Ahmed shared the leadership of the Union of the Islamic Courts with Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who was chairman of the court's legislative council.

Ethiopian troops came under fire again on Monday as they carried out searches in the south of the capital, residents told the AFP news agency that at least four civilians were killed in the ensuing gunbattle.

The searches were being conducted after an ambush on an Ethiopian convoy at the weekend which also resulted in a deadly gunbattle. alJazeera & Agencies

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia, Ummah

"You break it, you own it." The Pottery Barn rule of intervention and nation-building, made famous in Iraq, is about to be tested in Somalia.

Ethiopia, with support from the United States, has just broken a rather pricey piece of pottery in the Horn of Africa. In launching a major military offensive against Somalia's Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), Ethiopia removed an increasingly radicalized and arguably dangerous movement from power, but one which had succeeded in bringing rule of law to the capital Mogadishu for the first time in fifteen years.

Thanks to the Ethiopian intervention, the jihadist wing of the UIC is at least temporarily on the run. But Mogadishu is again ungoverned and growing more lawless by the day.

Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is now expected to assume administrative control of Mogadishu, a city of one million hostile, fearful, and well-armed people. But the TFG is weak and intensely disliked by most Mogadishu constituencies. It is in no position to govern absent a partnership forged with the Mogadishu leadership, and will not even be able to remain in the capital without the continued presence of Ethiopian forces.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the Ethiopian intervention, all concur that the fragile TFG must be made to work, lest Somalia fall back into a state of collapse. To this end, external actors are promoting power sharing between the TFG and its Mogadishu-based opposition, pledging support to improve the TFG's capacity to govern, and working to rapidly deploy an African Union peacekeeping force to Somalia.

All of these efforts are appropriate; all are long-shots. The quick deployment of an African Union force is especially problematic. Ethiopia is keen to avoid being drawn into a quagmire and has announced intent to withdraw its troops within weeks, passing Pottery Barn responsibilities on to the international community. The odds on assembling and deploying a viable peacekeeping force in that brief period of time are poor. And if peacekeepers are deployed absent a political dialogue that reassures Mogadishu-based groups, they will be viewed as not neutral and will be subject to attacks by both residual jihadi cells and clan-based militia.

Under these circumstances, the most likely scenario for Somalia is not hard to foresee. Ethiopia will partially withdraw and will not be replaced by adequate numbers of African Union peacekeepers; the TFG leaders will be unable to govern Mogadishu, will face a mounting insurgency, and will beat a hasty retreat to the countryside; and Somalia will fall back into political division and de facto collapse.

The Pottery Rule, it turns out, does not apply in Somalia. For obvious reasons, the optimal outcome for almost all concerned would be the revival of a functional, moderate government that provides security for its own citizens and not insecurity for neighboring states. But if that state-building project is too onerous or risky, renewed state collapse is an outcome that many key actors – Ethiopia, the United States, and a variety of Somali constituencies from businesspeople to Islamists – have learned to live with and occasionally prosper in.

In other words, a return to state collapse is almost no one's first choice for Somalia, but almost everyone's second choice.

Given how difficult, time-consuming and expensive reviving a failed state is, many external actors – especially those with notoriously short-attention spans for nation-building – will fail to follow up on oral commitments to shore up the TFG once Somalia fades from media attention. Some Somali groups, too, will undermine risky state-building initiatives the moment they threaten parochial interests, preferring the devil they know – anarchy – to the devil they don't.

For weary residents of Mogadishu, these narrow calculations are a recipe for misery. For six months in 2006, they had a taste of life in a safe, governed city. Though many Somalis were deeply uneasy with the radical and reckless direction the UIC leadership gradually took, they were willing to tolerate almost anything in return for public safety.

Unless some inspired Somali leadership produces a break-through agreement that produces a government of national unity and speedy revival of a municipal administration, Mogadishu residents will soon be plunged back into lawlessness, and forced to revive the many coping mechanisms they have devised to survive. And they will blame the US and Ethiopia for breaking the pottery and walking away.

Dr. Menkhaus is professor of Political Science at Davidson College, North Carolina and author of "Somalia: State Collapse and the Threat of Terrorism." allafrica.com

Labels: Luar Negeri, Somalia, Ummah

Mogadishu, January 19 - Heavy fighting erupted in the presidential palace compound, when gunmen attacked it with at least 8 mortar rounds, and then engaged in a fire fight with the so call "presidential guards" that lasted for 30 minutes spreading panic among the neighborhood residence.

Many witness said the fighting was heard around the neighborhood as gun men used heavy machine guns. Most of the Ethiopian troops left the city and only few are based in the airport and the sea port making it easy for the Islamic court troops to return the city and move around freely.

Speaking to Reuters news agency two Islamic fighters told earlier on Friday they had returned to Mogadishu and were planning attacks on Villa Somalia and other targets. (Picture left - Somalia's puppet President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed).

Ethiopian occupation troops moved out of many regions in Somalia and the Jubba regions where earlier in the month heavy fighting took place between the Islamic forces and the American-Ethiopian alliance.

Islamic affiliated website qaadisiya.com confirmed that Islamic Courts leader Sheikh Shariif made contact with them to confirm that he still in Somalia and never gave him self up to Kenyans authorities, and he also praised the resistance that is taking place in Mogadishu.

Several warlords are urging the Ethiopian occupation troops to stay fearing that once the Ethiopian troops withdraw that the Islamic force will resurface and take a painful revenge.

Speaker of the so call "parliament" Shariif Hassan Aden was removed from his position earlier this week as the "parliament" speaker, but he rejected it stating that it was illegal and would not accept it as the puppet "parliament" was a hostage to the Ethiopian and the so call "president" of Somalia, the EU also condemned the sacking. KC and Agencies

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia

NEW YORK: In his memorable, 1961 farewell speech, President Dwight Eisenhower warned Americans to avoid foreign entanglements and beware the growing power of the military-industrial complex.

It was thus ironic to see American air strikes being launched last week from the decks of the mighty attack carrier USS Eisenhower against the East African nation of Somalia.

"The US has opened a fourth front in the war on terrorism" trumpeted the Pentagon, as if it did not have enough failing wars on its hands in Afghanistan and Iraq.

US warplanes and, reportedly, Special Forces units, attacked Somalia from the sea and from the US base at Djibouti.

Other US units and FBI agents deployed on the Kenya-Somalia border.

Much of Somalia is already occupied by Ethiopia's powerful, US-financed army.

Ethiopia invaded defenceless Somalia, with Washington's blessing, under cover of the Christmas holiday.

But was Somalia really a "hotbed of terrorism" as Washington claimed?

The US-Ethiopian invasion of Somalia was sparked by last autumn's defeat of corrupt Somali warlords armed and financed by the CIA. They had kept Somalia in turmoil and near-anarchy for 15 years.

Last year, a group of Muslim jurists and notables, the Union of Islamic Courts, managed to defeat the warlords and impose a rough form of law and order on many parts of chaotic central and southern Somalia.

The conservative Islamic Courts were sympathetic to pan-Muslim causes.

But there is no evidence they were involved in anti-American jihadist movements and had no identifiable links, as Washington claimed, to Al Qaeda.

A handful of African Al Qaeda suspects in the 1998 bombing of US embassies in East Africa may have been in Somalia, but going to war against a sovereign nation to try to assassinate or capture a handful of suspects (some reportedly escaped) is like using a nuclear weapon to kill a gnat and is sure to generate more anti-US violence.

Air strikes by carrier-based US F-18s and the deadly AC-130 gunships killed between 50 and 100 Somali civilians but, apparently, no Al Qaeda suspects.

In line with increasing militarisation of US foreign policy, the Pentagon's new golden-haired boys, Special Operations Command, pushed aside the humiliated CIA and the feckless State Department and vowed to "drain the Islamic swamp" in Somalia.

Thus begins President Bush's fourth war against the Muslim world.

He failed dismally to capture Osama bin Laden, conquer Iraq, or pacify Afghanistan. Dirt-poor, defenceless Somalia is Bush's last stab at military glory and a last-ditch effort to convince Americans the so-called "war on terror" is a success.

The administration is again recklessly charging into a thicket of tribal politics in a remote nation it knows nothing about. US policy in Somalia is being driven by neoconservatives seeking war against the entire Muslim world, and self-serving advice from ally Ethiopia. Israel has close intelligence, military and economic links to Ethiopia's regime and has long conducted covert operations in the Horn of Africa.

Eritrea's 1993 secession took away Ethiopia's natural access to the sea, leaving it landlocked. Ethiopia's prime goal in Somalia is seizing one or more deep-water ports, turning Somalia into a protectorate, and crushing any Islamic movements that might enflame its own voiceless Muslims, who comprise half of Ethiopia's 73 million people.

America's attack on Somalia recalls Afghanistan. The US is again blundering into ancient clan and tribal conflicts, using foreign troops and local mercenaries to defend a puppet regime without any popular support. US-Ethiopian intervention in Somalia is certain to re-ignite the murderous clan rivalries that brought it to its current state of anarchy.

Like Afghanistan, Somalia was easy to invade, but may prove very difficult to rule, or eventually leave. The invading Ethiopians, blood foes of Somalis, were not greeted with flowers, as US necons again promised.

Many Somalis saw the US and Ethiopians as invaders, and the now scattered Islamic Courts militias as their best hope for stability and normalcy. Now they are back to zero - or worse.

Like Afghanistan after the US invasion in 2001, Somalis have been slow to organise resistance against their latest occupiers. But in time they will likely mount a fierce resistance to the new US-Ethiopian condominium over Somalia.

Again, as in Afghanistan, Somali resistance to foreign occupation was initially feeble, but it is likely to intensify into guerilla operations if the Ethiopian Army remains for long.

From 1899 to 1930, Somalia waged a bitter guerilla war against British colonial occupation, in which a third of its population was killed. Britain gave the Ogaden region of western Somalia to Ethiopia, thus ensuring permanent hostility between the two neighbours.

So begins yet another unnecessary war. sun2surf

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia, Ummah

At least three FM radios and a TV were ordered to close their stations. A decree issued by the so call "security department" of the puppet "interim government" ordered the Shabelle Media Network, Horn Afrik, IQK and Aljazeera TV stations in Mogadishu to be shut down.

The decree says, "From today 15 January, 2007 the above mentioned radio and TV stations to halt their broadcasting operations as soon they receive this decree. The managements of the media are being informed to come to the government security department that lies in Bar FIAT in Mogadishu on Tuesday".

All radio stations including Shabelle Radio instantly went off air.

The news comes as all local and foreign journalists were busy covering the events in Somalia.

The puppet "government" did not specifically justify why the free media in Somalia was shut down.

Agencies

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia

Mogadishu, 13 Jan 07 (Sh.M.Network) - Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden, the Somali transitional parliament speaker, has pointed the martial law approved by the parliament as illegal.

The speaker, who, along with 21 Somali MPs expelled from Kenya, currently stays in neighboring Djibouti, reiterated that the Ethiopian government should withdraw its troops from Somalia immediately.

The Somali parliament supported today that a state of emergency should be imposed on the country for three months to enable the government take a full control after 16 years of lawlessness. The parliament has been debating about the motion since Thursday.

Aden said the state of emergency law approved by the parliament violates the country’s constitutional law.

He has pointed out that he would be flying to Europe. “The use of foreign forces in Somalia will give rise to bad consequences”, he said, calling on the Somali people to try evicting the Ethiopian troops out of the country.

Somalia has had no central government since 1991 when warlords toppled former president Siad Barre and then turned on each other, plunging the country into anarchy and tribal wars.

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia

Mogadishu, 13 Jan.07 (Sh.M.Network) - The Somali transitional parliament has today approved three months of a martial law to be imposed on the war-torn country in their last session in Baidoa, 245 km (153 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu on Saturday.

Shabelle reporter Abdiaziz Sheik in Baidoa said at least 156 parliamentarians have arrived to the session on Saturday. The parliament began debating last Thursday over the martial law and how it would affect the Somali people.

Abdulahi Sheik Ismail, the minister of the federal constitution, who read to members of the parliament about the agendas, which should be supported.

154 MPs have endorsed the martial law while 2 kept silent. The minister then announced the law was affective and would be implemented.

There were some articles altered after long debate by the MPs.

On Thursday a committee in which the prime Minster and the defense minister included was appointed to observe the side affects of the state of emergency law; the MPs have objected today that the committee should be given the authority to approve or disapprove decisions made by the parliament members.

They said the president had the upper power for the last decision.

Martial law, which is a military rule or authority imposed on a civilian population when the civil authorities cannot maintain law and order, as in a time of war or during an emergency, it is not yet clear how the Somali democratic federal government would enforce it.

Many Somalis believe that the government is not in a firm control of the country.

The decision of martial law came despite a widespread insecurity in Somalia where Ethiopian and government soldiers are rarely visible on the streets of the volatile city of Mogadishu.

President Abdulahi Yusuf, who arrived Mogadishu early last week, has had various meetings with his predecessors, tribal elders, foresighted people, and warlords over how peace and security would be restored to the capital Mogadishu.

The news comes as Somalia’s defense Minster Col. Barre Hirale revealed that the Ethiopian and government forces have seized the defeated Islamists’ last stronghold of Raskamboni, a Somali island along the Kenyan border.

Labels: Berita, Luar Negeri, Somalia