Word: somalia
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...East Africa, and its presence dramatically increased after Sept. 11, 2001. In the summer of 2006, the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), an alliance of clerics and clan leaders that included several al-Itihaad al-Islamiya leaders, took over Mogadishu and imposed a form of law and order on Somalia, which had just gone through 15 years of civil war. But a few months later, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the UIC, which had absorbed al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, declared a jihad on Ethiopian troops, who were regularly crossing into Somalia. "That was unacceptable," Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles...
...they were substantial, with a significant naval presence offshore, special-operations forces and missions flown from nearby airfields, all designed to degrade the capacity of local Islamist militants. In early January, says Abdirashid Mohamed Hiddig, a member of the Somalian parliament, the Ethiopians asked him to fly to Kulbio, Somalia. There, he says, U.S. plainclothes personnel and military personnel were sifting prisoners, looking for al-Qaeda. Human Rights Watch, a humanitarian organization based in New York City, says Ethiopian and Kenyan security forces detained hundreds of suspects without charge, though most were released...
...summer, Ethiopian and U.S. officials were claiming that the little war in Somalia was over. Though his troops remained in Mogadishu, Meles told TIME that the operation was a "tremendous success." But the violence never disappeared. On June 1, a U.S. warship unleashed an artillery barrage on Puntland in northern Somalia, reportedly killing eight jihadis. In a four-day battle in the capital in April, some 1,000 Ethiopians and Somali rebels died. Fierce fighting broke out in Mogadishu again last month, after which tens of thousands more refugees fled the capital...
...transitional government in Mogadishu has fractured, with clan loyalties trumping unity. In October, President Yusuf Abdullah fired Prime Minster Ali Mohammed Gedi. (On Nov. 24, in the latest attempt to forge a working government, Nur Hassan Hussain, the longtime president of Somalia's Red Crescent Society, was sworn in as Prime Minister.) Government forces stormed the U.N. World Food Program compound in October and briefly took its head of mission hostage. And the jihadis are regrouping. Ayro, now recovered, is back in Mogadishu at the head of the UIC militia. He recently issued a proclamation hailing bin Laden and calling...
...greatest risk is of a regional war, fusing conflicts in Somalia; the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, where Eritrea-backed separatists are fighting the Ethiopian army; and across the Ethiopia-Eritrea border. Ken Menkhaus, a professor of political science at Davidson College, stresses "the danger ... that all these interlocking conflicts will ignite a larger conflagration." Eritrea is now the base for an alliance of Somali nationalist rebels, the UIC and separatist Ethiopian rebels from the Ogaden National Liberation Front. In July the U.N. Monitoring Group on Somalia, based in Nairobi, said Eritrea was supplying Somali insurgents with "huge" amounts...