Word: somalia
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...immediate northern neighbor Eritrea. After a 30-year struggle for independence, Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia in 1993, and the pair fought a border war in 1998-2000 in which tens of thousands died. Wounds from that fight are still fresh, and the border dispute remains unresolved. On occasion, Somalia has served both countries as a battleground for proxy wars. With such a confluence of conflict, the nightmare scenario has long been a regional war that engulfs the Horn, perhaps impeding Suez Canal shipping traffic. According to a Western official in Addis, Ethiopia is "the center of gravity" in this game...
Lately, however, the intrigues and conflicts have intensified. First, in December 2006, Ethiopia invaded Somalia and overthrew the fundamentalist Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which had ruled Somalia for six months. Although the ICU brought the first semblance of law and order to the capital Mogadishu in 15 years, its Islamist ideology caused alarm in Ethiopia. With its troops occupying the country, as they still do, Ethiopia organized its own rendition operation with the cooperation of Kenya and the new government in Somalia it had installed, transferring hundreds of suspected jihadis and their families to jails in Addis and interrogating them...
Some of this does not sit well with Washington. The U.S. considers Ethiopia its "biggest partner" in Africa, according to the Addis-based official. That relationship allowed U.S. Special Forces to piggyback on Ethiopia's operations in Somalia to launch two air strikes in January against one or more of the three fugitive al-Qaeda leaders believed to be on the Kenya-Somalia border. But, as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer has said, Washington opposed the invasion of Somalia. "We urged the Ethiopian military not to go into Somalia," said Frazer last month. "They did so because...
Whatever Washington's misgivings, there is little doubt that once Ethiopia committed to an invasion, the U.S. provided intelligence, military targeting and logistical support to Ethiopian forces in Somalia - support which continues to this day. Despite this cooperation, further differences between the U.S. and Ethiopia surfaced earlier this year when Ethiopian soldiers detained for 24 hours four unidentified U.S. personnel close to a U.S. Special Forces base at Gode in the Ogaden, an incident confirmed both by a U.S. diplomat in the region and Meles. The men were held on suspicion of trying to open contacts with the ONLF...
...American consulate in Asmara, she announced Washington was doing the same to the Eritrean consulate in Oakland, Calif., and considering adding the Eritrean government to its list of state sponsors of terrorism. "Eritrea has played a key role in financing, funding and arming the terror and insurgency activities ... in Somalia," said Frazer in an August briefing. "If they continue their behavior and we put together the file that's necessary, I think it would be fairly convincing." U.S. diplomats in the region, meanwhile, push the view that Meles is a reformed rebel turned aspirant democrat, whereas Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki...