The Strategy in Somalia
The U.S. efforts to help dismantle the ICU Islamists in Somalia, with proxy forces defending their own national interests, is a model that we will likely seeing with increasing frequency in more remote areas of the world where the Islamist threat exists.
So far U.S. troops for the Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa have provided intelligence and air support to Ethiopian and Somali forces to keep the ICU forces from regrouping into a coherent resistence that can challenge the fragile government. The U.S. has helped where others did not possess the capability, but did not take a higly visible stance. So far, so good.
The strategy is risky, but better than almost any alternative available if the threat is already consolidating, as it certainly appeared to be in Somalia. U.S. boots on the ground would create instant hostility, and doing nothing in an area where diplomatic leverage is almost zero allows a threat to remain unchecked.
But the military side was the relatively easy part. The strategy can only be successful if there is awareness of how fragile the current situation is, and how quickly it can change. We are very good at looking back, and analysis are often rooted in a frozen frame, rather than in the reality of the fluctuationg situation on the ground.
The support for the Transitional Government must be supplemented by real aid that makes people’s lives better. The Ethiopian troops should be withdrawn or their presence minimized at the soonest possible date to avoid being seen as an occupying army. At the same time, there must be a security force of some strength to give the people what they most liked about the ICU-security on the streets and the ability to do business without fear.
Support is not always, or even primarily, financial. At this juncture it is vital that the Somalis felt needs, rather than the international community’s boiler plate remedies, take precedence. It is also vital that, unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, there be no paralell ministries of finance and aid set up that work at cross-purposes. In Afghanistan, the finance minister was, in reality, much less powerful than the donor community, divided into different pieces with different agendas. Billions of dollars were effectively lost because of that.
The Transitional Government must also work to give as many as possible of the clans and subclans a stake in the future of a peaceful Somalia. The ICU did this to a certain degree. It is here where the international community must have the skill to support the process without being seen as supporting one narrow group.
There are, in almost every situation like Somalia currently finds itself in, a brief window, sometimes called an “open moment,” when the future of the country is decided. These moments are few and far between in a nation’s history, where the past and the future hang in the balance. Ashraf Ghani, former finance minister of Afghanistan, is one of the most eloquent analysts on this topic. He notes that these moments are usually fleeting, and often not appreciated or recognized when they arise.
This is Somalia’s “open moment.” The national leadership and the international community must recognize this short window or risk having Somalia return to the dismal past.
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The Wrong Question on Somalia Pessimism in the Intelligence Community
Douglas:
Search Dobley Somalia and you will find a NYTimes article re: Ethiopian forces i.e. helicoptors heading toward Dobley. This article appeared at Pro-Med and IRIN.
KENYA-SOMALIA: Fighting halts effort to verify deadly fever
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
© Siegfried Modola/IRIN
Many Somalis have been made more vulnerable by the fighting
NAIROBI, 9 Jan 2007 (IRIN) –
“Fighting in southern Somalia has hampered efforts to confirm a possible spread of Rift Valley Fever (RVF) from neighbouring Kenya to the Lower Juba Region where seven people have died after showing symptoms of the rare, contagious haemorrhagic disease, Somali health officials said.
The deaths were reported in Dobley, 18 km north of the Kenyan border, in the last five days. “The dead are mainly nomadic herders,” said Hassan Mursal, a clinical officer in nearby Afmadow hospital. “The number could be higher but because of the current insecurity in the area there is no way of getting the full picture.”
Mahamud Haji Hassan Jabra, an epidemiologist with the European Union-funded Somali Animal Health Service Project, said numerous reports of animal abortions – a key indicator of the disease – had been received from the area. But plans to send two teams to verify the outbreak would only go ahead once the security situation allowed.
“Our focal point in the area has reported the clinical signs of the disease but we need to confirm this by testing the samples collected,” he said. “If it turns out to be RVF it will have a devastating impact on the livelihoods of the pastoralists, who have suffered two years of drought followed by heavy flooding.”
Dobley is close to the Kenyan border where fighting continues between Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) remnants and Ethiopian-backed Somali government soldiers, who have been chasing them since the UIC were forced out of Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia.
A humanitarian source in the area told IRIN on Tuesday that casualties had been reported when planes carried out air strikes in villages close to Dobley. “We have reports of 22 people killed by the bombing,” he said. International media reported that the planes were American, targeting suspected al-Qaeda operatives.
“Most of those killed were in a convoy of donkeys carrying sugar to the outlying villages,” which have been rendered inaccessible due to recent heavy rains, said the source, who requested anonymity. Another source told IRIN there were reports of a number of armed militia in the area. “We don’t know whether they belonged to the Islamic courts or not but some people are saying that they were there.”
The bombardment took place in an area known as Jiiro, a “very good pastureland, with the highest concentration of cattle in the Juba valley”, said the humanitarian source, adding that whether there were militants in the area or not, “civilians had been hit…”
The fighting, he added, was making “it impossible to access the area and help the pastoralists”...
— Philip Henika Jan 12, 18:40 #
Douglas –
Dobley was the focus of the report I sent to the Group re: Rift Valley Fever. In the NYT Times article below:
“The Ethiopian Information Ministry said Thursday that
its military was also launching helicopter and troop
attacks around Dobley, about four miles from the
Kenyan border.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/12/world/africa/12somalia.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin
Raid Killed Somali Allies of Al Qaeda,
U.S. Says
Michael Kamber for The New York Times
— Philip Henika Jan 12, 18:48 #
Douglas:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/world/africa/13proxy.html?hp&ex=1168750800&en=526ec8f28383b229&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Pentagon Sees Move in Somalia as Blueprint
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: January 13, 2007
”...WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — Military operations in Somalia
by American commandos, and the use of the Ethiopian
Army as a surrogate force to root out operatives for
Al Qaeda in the country, are a blueprint that Pentagon
strategists say they hope to use more frequently in
counterterrorism missions around the globe.
Military officials said the strike by an American
gunship on terrorism suspects in southern Somalia on
Sunday showed that even with the departure of Donald
H. Rumsfeld from the Pentagon, Special Operations
troops intended to take advantage of the directive
given to them by Mr. Rumsfeld in the weeks after the
Sept. 11 attacks.
American officials said the recent military operations
have been carried by the Pentagon’s Joint Special
Operations Command, which directs the military’s most
secretive and elite units, like the Army’s Delta
Force…”
— Philip Henika Jan 13, 11:03 #